Near Light
by bravevulnerability
Summary: "All I want this Christmas is just to be here, to remember. But if I can't do that… I want to make new memories, build new traditions to go with the old." An AU that takes place immediately after the events of 3x24, Knockout. Set during the Christmas season.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: For those who are still here, who have been kind enough to continue reading my work, thank you for your time, your dedication, and your encouragement. This show, this love story, will always be close to my heart and always worth writing about. Though, it wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable without the privilege of having all of you along for the journey. Again, thank you.**

 **For the sake of this story's timeline, Beckett's shooting takes place during the first week of December, closer to the holiday season.**

* * *

The darkness is like a sea, waves of it crashing around her, cold and threatening to drag her under with every hard slap against her chest. She's barely keeping her head above water, the bone chilling temperature infiltrating her skin, freezing her from the outside in. Her lungs crumble like paper, deflating while the struggle of surviving lays siege to her heart. Whatever's left of her heart.

The gentle touch to her face tugs her to the surface, an anchor in the storm, warmth in the cold. She's lost, drowning, freezing to death, but she can hear his voice, asking her to stay.

 _Stay with me, Kate. Stay with me, I love you. I love you._

She clings to it like a lifeline, clings to the soft words in her ear and the warm caress to her cold skin. She clings to him, to that voice, as everything goes dark again.

* * *

When they tell him she's awake and that he can see her, his heart skips and stumbles its way through his chest while his feet do the same down the holiday decorated hospital corridors that will lead him to her. His palms sweat around the vase of flowers he picked out for her, vibrant oranges and gentle pinks, a bouquet of beautiful colors and subtle contradictions. It made him think of her. The best he could think to go with after nearly losing her to a bullet and confessing his love to her at the same time.

After all, he wasn't exactly sure which arrangement of flowers best said 'get well soon' and 'I hope I didn't freak you out too badly'.

Shit, he loves her. And she _knows._

Rick pauses outside her hospital room door, checking his appearance in the reflection, before taking a deep breath, pushing inside.

For a moment, all he can focus on is Kate. Her skin is pale, the dark circles under her eyes highlighted by the lack of color, the hollow structure of her bones giving way to sunken cheeks. The mess of her hair frames her face, the slash of her frowning mouth and creased brow. But her eyes are open, her lips moving, her chest rising and falling with the lowered volume of the heart monitor's beep.

She's alive. He was so terrified he would never get to witness such a beautiful sight again, but she's here, she's breathing. She's going to be okay. It's all that matters.

His chest clenches as his gaze drifts to Josh sitting at her bedside, but listening to their argument in hushed tones has confusion quelling his disappointment, his brow drawing into a furrow.

"Babe, the doctor said it's only temporary, it'll come back," Josh insists quietly, his words patient and soothing. His 'good doctor' voice, Rick would assume. Her boyfriend reaches for her hand with both of his, smoothing his thumbs along the plastic patient bracelet encasing her wrist. "I know it's scary, but-"

"Stop touching me," Kate hisses, slipping her wrist from his grasp. "I don't even know you."

"Kate," Josh sighs, dragging both hands through his hair.

It's then that her eyes flicker to Rick, agitated and dark, burning with frustration and a hint of fear. But no recognition.

What does she mean she doesn't _know_ him?

Kate blinks, spares a momentary look back to Josh. "Who's that?"

His heart drops.

She doesn't remember?

* * *

Josh Davidson, the surgeon who continues to claim that he's her boyfriend, leaves after a few tense words with the man who just walked in. He's holding flowers, an armful of soft shades and vivid hues, the bouquet standing bright against the black of his clothes.

He looks stricken, grief flaring in his eyes, bright like the flowers, when they land on her.

"I'll be back, Kate." Josh brushes past him, purposely bumping against the other man's on his way to the door.

The power move annoys her, has her questioning her own character. Why would she be dating a jerk?

She wouldn't mind if he didn't come back.

But with Josh gone, it leaves her alone with the man with the beautiful flowers and sad blue eyes.

There's something familiar about him. She can't place it, can't draw up an actual memory of him, but there's comfort in his presence, in his broad frame and the way he looks at her.

Whoever he is, they have a history.

"I'm assuming I know you," she murmurs, swallowing past the dryness in her throat, trying to ignore the way it triggers the fierce burn in her chest. She needs water, but Josh never stopped talking long enough for her to ask and the stranger in front of her… she needs answers before she asks for anything else.

The man swallows too, his adam's apple rippling along his throat. He takes a tentative step closer, his arm tightening around the flower vase.

"Yeah, actually. We're partners. Well-"

He glances to the seat Josh abandoned at her bedside, looks back to her as if for confirmation. She nods, slowly so not to upset the fragile remains of her chest, her bullet-pierced heart. He places the flowers on the table closest to her and she catches their scent, sweet and subtle. A caress to her senses rather than a brutal punch like everything else has been since she awoke to this strange world of nothing but pain and hospital rooms, blank spaces in her mind and people trying to stake their claim in it.

"Josh mentioned you're having trouble remembering, but does he mean… everything?"

She purses her lips, frustration stirring the headache forming at the forefront of her skull. "I didn't even know my name when I woke up," she confesses, watching the concern bloom like spring in his eyes. "I - my dad was here, talked with the doctor for a while. I must have fallen asleep and when I woke up, Josh was here. He told me a few things, not much."

"I can try to help." Those blue eyes spark with hope and it sparks something in her. Something like a memory, but not quite. She just knows that she's seen that look before, that it eases some of the rioting fear in her brain, some of the additional agony in her chest.

"You could start by telling me your name," she suggests, a touch of amusement fluttering along the sandpaper stretch of her throat when he blinks almost comically.

"Oh, yeah, sorry," he chuckles, but he looks so tired, sounds so weary. She wonders why. "Richard Castle, but you usually just call me 'Castle'."

Castle. Strange name, interesting.

"And you're… my partner?" she picks up from earlier, watching him nod.

"You're a cop," he elaborates, easing into the hard plastic chair. Admiration shines in his eyes when he says it, like he's proud of her. She can't help compare it to Josh's explanation, how bitter he looked when he mentioned her profession. "A homicide detective for the NYPD. I'm a mystery writer-"

Wait, what?

"Writer? But you said… you're not a cop?" she questions, that headache starting to throb again.

But Castle is patient with her, not a hint of irritation in his features. Just a twitch of hurt in the corner of his eyes. She's hurting everyone she apparently knows, though - her father, Josh Davidson, Richard Castle.

"It's a long story. I'll tell it if I need to, but you look spent," he murmurs, his eyes roaming her face, drifting to her chest, lingering. Indignation flares in her battered chest. So he knows. Just like everyone else seems to know what happened to her and why. "How are you feeling?"

"You know why I was shot," she says instead, lowering her head back to the pillow. She can't keep it up anymore, her bones straining to support the weight of her skull. "No one'll tell me."

A shadow crosses his face, that soft gaze going dark. She may have lost her memory, but she hasn't lost her instincts, her skills as a cop. There's leftover horror in his eyes, the grief she spotted earlier telling her all she needs to know.

He was there. Whenever this happened to her.

"It's a lot to tell, Kate," he murmurs, his eyes falling to the hand at her side.

She releases a shallow breath. She doesn't have the energy to push, to know; she can already feel herself starting to drift again.

"Castle," she mumbles, watching his eyes fly back to her face. So quick and ready, so concerned and anxious. He's loyal, good to her, that much is clear. She hopes she's been good to him too. "You gotta stay."

Something like relief washes through his face. "I won't go anywhere."

She believes him.

Her eyes start to flutter, lashes brushing at her cheeks and threatening to fall shut. Her fingers twitch, her body fighting to stay awake even as it begins to succumb. The warmth of his hand covering hers, searing through some of the numbing chill inhabiting her bones, has her blinking past the blur, seeking the brilliant blue of his gaze like a beacon.

She manages to hook her index finger in his, holding on. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

His lips part, panic flickering in his eyes before he closes his mouth, offers her the touch of a smile.

"I just never thought I'd see you again."

She doesn't know him, isn't sure if whatever memories her mind has apparently repressed will ever bring Richard Castle back, but just looking at him now, she's certain of one thing.

Kate closes her eyes.

He loves her.


	2. Chapter 2

She told him to stay and he's staying.

Even when her boyfriend comes back and threatens to have him forcibly removed.

Josh towers over him in the chair at her bedside, glowering and demanding in low tones for him to leave in what Rick assumes are hopes of not waking Kate.

It's Jim Beckett who comes to his rescue, warning the doctor to back off.

"If my daughter asked him to stay, he should be here when she wakes up again."

Josh purses his lips, taking a breath before meeting her father's gaze in the doorway. "Your daughter doesn't even know who she is right now. Maybe the last thing she needs is the person who caused-"

" _Enough_ ," Jim snaps, stepping into the room. "I know my daughter and I know Rick. I don't know you. Considering your claim to a relationship with Kate, I find that pretty odd."

Josh looks both ashamed and infuriated. "Fine. But when it comes back, when she remembers, it's not going to be him she wants here."

Her boyfriend's glare wouldn't matter under any other circumstances, but it burns in that moment. Because Rick knows he's guilty of what Josh is accusing him of, just as he was hours ago when the surgeon shoved him in the hallway, blamed him for Kate's shooting.

 _You pushed her to look into her mother's murder! She was shot because of you and Montgomery is dead because of you!_

"Don't listen to him, son," Jim pipes up before the spiral can swallow Rick whole. "He doesn't know her. Doesn't know who you are to her."

"He's her boyfriend," Castle answers hollowly. "He-"

"Had no chance in hell," Jim shrugs, covering the rest of the distance to Kate's bed, descending to take a seat at her feet. "You think I don't know my own daughter?"

"I-"

"Johanna had that same look in her eyes when she looked at me, you know," her father murmurs, his features softening, his warm gaze drifting to Kate's pale face. "It's how I knew she was in love with me. She'd look at me with that same shine in her eyes that Kate has when she looks at you."

Castle's entire chest tightens, pain and elation coming together to choke him. "She doesn't… she can't-"

"She may not want to. Girl's as afraid of caring about someone again as I am," Jim concedes, lifting his eyes back to Rick, staring at him with too much knowledge. "But like I said, I know my daughter."

"But she doesn't even know who I am anymore," Castle argues, his heart deflating all over again. "I - I told her how I felt, that I loved her." He lowers his gaze before he can see Jim's reaction, glaring down at his dress shoes instead. "I waited until it was too late."

"Never too late," Jim counters all too easily. "Rick, the doctors have expressed high hopes for the return of her memory. You may not be fresh on her mind right now, but you're still in there. You just gotta remind her."

Castle sighs, a conflicting combination of gratitude and frustration for Jim Beckett bubbling in his guts.

"What if this happened for a reason? Maybe… maybe I just drag her down. Josh is right, I'm the one who reopened Johanna's case-"

"Stop it. You know as well as I do that she never would have let it lie, not for much longer," Jim points out, tired frustration of his own simmering along the surface of his features. "You're right, Rick. Things do happen for a reason. Now, I like you, so shut up before you give me a reason not to."

Jim Beckett stands from the bed, something like a smile tugging worn and weak at the corner of his mouth. That same tired smile Kate would always give him after a long case finally closed. Exhausted but pleased. "I'm going for a coffee run. Want something?"

"I… sure," Castle sighs, scrubbing a hand along his jaw. He could use the caffeine. "And Mr. Beckett?"

Jim pauses on his walk to the door, offering Castle his brief attention.

"Thank you."

Her father nods and continues to the exit, leaving Rick alone with his daughter once again.

He glances back to her sleeping figure, the calm that has settled over her usually restless features. She's beautiful like this despite the fatigue and devastation, her jawline sharp but slack, her lashes black feathers against the ash of her cheeks.

Alone with her, he reaches to dust his fingertips along the raised bone of her cheek, following the slash of it to the delicate skin below her eye. She doesn't stir, so he lingers, allowing his fingers to dance lightly along the concave plane of her face.

Her lips still have that blue tint to them, the chill of death lingering in the corners of her mouth. So much so that it almost startles him when she speaks.

"Were we ever together?" she whispers, her eyes slitting open just enough to see him.

He quickly draws his hand back as if her questioned burned his fingertips. The question itself burns, sears through him with all the regrets of what could have been that swarm to the surface now more than ever. Her gaze follows the departure of his fingers - slow, hazy, and confused.

Still very much under the influence of morphine.

She won't remember anyway, he muses. Can't hurt to be honest for once.

"No, not really," he confesses, tentatively returning his touch to her forehead this time, tracing the line of her hair. "Almost."

"Almost?" she echoes, her eyes fluttering under the ministration of his hand. "S'that mean?"

His lips quirk. She sounds like Alexis would when she was little, fighting sleep so hard even as her tongue began to succumb to the battle.

"Lots of moments, missed opportunities," he shrugs. "Not enough… communication, courage."

She licks her lips, the soft flesh looking painfully chapped, and releases a shallow exhale. "That sucks."

A small chuckle, hollow and pained, slips from his own lips. "Yeah, it seriously does."

"Like you better than Josh," she mutters, the corner of her mouth curling when he laughs again. "He bugs me."

"I'm sure he… I'm sure you'll remember all the reasons you like him soon," he tries, but even she narrows her faltering gaze at him for that one.

"Rooting for the other man, Castle?"

That has him sputtering. "What? Rooting? No, you just - when you - I'm-" Her smirk cuts him off, has him lowering his hand from her face to her neck with a huff. Touching her like it's so natural, as if it isn't the first time he's felt the smooth layer of her vulnerable skin beneath his fingers. "Go back to sleep."

She looks far too satisfied for someone with a gunshot wound and no memory, but her eyes do fall shut and her chest shakes with a small yawn that visibly pains her. He brushes his thumb back and forth along the subtle beat of her pulse.

"I'll keep looking," she mumbles, unconsciously tilting into his touch.

"For?" he replies, not necessarily expecting a response back.

She's already drifting, her speech slurred, but she manages to let him know. "You."

* * *

She doesn't find him in the barren recesses of her brain, the dark caverns of her mind where only the bare essentials of her memories lie.

In the days that follow, though, some things do come back. Her father, for instance, returns sharp and quick. All her memories of him, from her childhood to her present, both the good and the bad, back in place. But with the remembrance of Jim Beckett comes the memories of her mother.

Remembering her mom, her death, shatters her healing heart all over again.

The knowledge of it all, the vivid images of her death, has Kate lying in her hospital bed with her chest cut open and her eyes burning with tears when Castle walks in that morning. The fifth, maybe the sixth - she thinks, hard to keep track of the days - consecutive morning he's walked through her hospital room door with coffee and a small smile in her near week of being stuck here.

She doesn't know what they are, what they ever were; he admitted they were never together - whether it was a real conversation or a dream of one, she remembers that much - but he never went into detail about how close they came. Her instincts tell her it was a lot closer than friendship. Had to be.

She knows herself, knows she's not a naturally affectionate person with just anyone; the urge to curl up against him, to let him hold her, has her convinced that he's not just anyone. Not just a friend. He's someone important to her, someone special. Special enough, apparently, to already know all about her mother's death, her ongoing case.

"It's what put me in here, isn't it?" she mumbles, staring at him through the remnants of salt from tears still stinging in her eyes.

Castle sets down the coffees on the table beside her bed. He's been bringing her decaf, but another thing she's sure she remembers about herself is that she needs real caffeine to function.

"How much do you remember?"

Kate closes her eyes, seeing the images on the backs of their lids every time now. "My mom. How - how she was murdered."

"Oh, Kate," he whispers, so much heartache in his voice for her. She wonders if he mourned for her as much the first time he learned of the trauma that defined her.

"She was… stabbed," she rasps, trying to clear her throat, but the vibration of it shudders through her chest. "Killer never caught."

She feels him take a careful seat beside her hip, laying a hand over hers. She wonders about that too, if it was something they did before - held hands. He seemed comfortable with it from the start and she hasn't once grown tired of the warmth his palm embraces her chilled knuckles in.

"I know," he murmurs, the frown on his lips carving deeper.

"We still haven't found out who did it, why," she assumes. She wouldn't have forgotten such a triumph as accomplishing justice; Rick wouldn't hold such a solemn expression if such justice was in reach.

"Not yet," he confirms, stroking his thumb back and forth over her knuckles. "But we will. Just… not like this, not at the expense of your own life, Kate."

"My own fault I got shot?" she asks, because it wouldn't surprise her. She'd do anything to solve this case, to avenge her mother; she knows that much without having to remember anything else.

"No," he argues quickly, his fingers squeezing around hers. "It's… mine. My fault."

Her brow furrows, the usual stir of confusion back and prevalent now. "You… you aren't the one who shot me."

Castle sighs, shakes his head. "No, but I'm the reason… you had let it go, let it rest. But then, when we met, I wanted to know… I wanted your story, I pushed you. I looked into her case even after you told me not to." He looks so guilty, the usual flecks of gold in his eyes gone dull, the light gone and the haze of sorrow overtaking his entire face. "I thought we could do it together, that we could solve this case, and you could finally have closure, justice. But all I did was drag you back into it, put you in the crosshairs."

Her heart stutters with a fleeting beat of apprehension.

"Are you a part of it?" she whispers, earning the immediate flash of his gaze, the deep crease of his brow.

"What? _No_. How could you even-"

"Because I don't know you," she growls, balling her fingers into a fist beneath his. "I don't know anything anymore."

The affronted ripple in his eyes, the wounded expression she evokes across his face, tells her something though.

"I jumped in front of the bullet for you," he grinds out, removing his hand from hers.

The chill of the hospital room seeps into her exposed skin, the veins that were warmed under his touch going cold again.

Her bullet wound begins to throb, sense memory stronger than all else, the pierce of it reverberating through her system all over again. She needs to press it down, press her fist to her chest, stop the spreading fire.

 _Stay with me, Kate._

She squeezes her eyes shut, the heart monitor picks up speed, steady beeping turning to screeching.

"Kate?" he murmurs, the weight beside her lifting, the hover of his body above her.

Just like in the cemetery. Why was she in a cemetery? Were they already burying her?

Dress blues, white gloves, blood all over her hands. His.

A face above her, blurred and haloed by the sunlight, the heat of tears falling to her cheeks with the snow.

"Kate, I'm going to get a nurse, just-"

"No, _no_ ," she breathes, forcing her eyes open to the same concern on his face that she remembers from the first day she woke here. "Just - it's just tight."

His hand is on her face, stroking back stray strands of her hair. It helps anchor her, breathe easy again.

"You jumped in front of a bullet for me?" she echoes his words, gasping out the fragmented memory, the kaleidoscope vision of snow against a blue sky and sunlight, all of it spinning around her while she fades away in winter's dying grass. "Cold."

Hope sparks in his eyes and she wishes she could stop it, stop him from getting those hopes up too high.

"All I saw," she breathes, the sweat on the back of her neck gathering, rivulets trailing down her spine. "Snow, sun, blood."

He swallows hard, disappointment a visible lump in his throat. Everything from that moment is matching up, except him. She just can't see him. "Yeah, that's all I saw too."

"All I remember," she clarifies, but he's already nodding.

"I know, it's okay," he assures her, continuing to comb back the oily locks of her hair.

For a moment, all she can do is stare at him, his downcast eyes and the grief inhabiting every line and juncture in his skin. Maybe he does hold some responsibility, maybe he caused some sort of domino effect that could have been prolonged but was inevitable nonetheless. Because letting it go? Allowing her mother's killer to roam free? No, that isn't her. Not for long.

She knows herself despite her lack of memory and despite all else, she knows him, doesn't she? He wouldn't hurt her, not on purpose.

No, he wouldn't hurt her, but apparently, he would die for her.

"Rick," she whispers, leaning into the brush of his hand, the cradle of his palm at her cheek. She wishes he would stop touching her, stop comforting her, making it all the more confusing. All the more frustrating, as tears gather in the corner of her eyes. "Need to remember."

"I know," he repeats, swiping at the corner of her eye before any moisture can leak free. "You will. Just this memory alone… it's something, Kate. It's good."

She nods even though she's not quite convinced.

In this dark new world she's awakened to, with nothing but memories of a happy childhood burned to ash by tragedy, her mother's death, and a bleak future… it has her yearning for the only thing that currently feels familiar, for Richard Castle. For whatever's left of them.

Her eyes fall closed again, the familiar clutch of blackness and sleep slithering around her.

"Stay a little longer," she mumbles, her cheek weighing heavier against his palm.

His thumb grazes the length of her eyebrow. "Always."

She succumbs to sleep, but that word, that promise, loops through her mind with conviction. She clings to it, trusts in it, in the temptation to believe it. In whatever 'always' means when it's coming from him.

* * *

Alexis is waiting for him when he eases out of Kate's room while she sleeps. His daughter's red hair beams like a beacon in the dull hospital waiting room, bright and calling him home.

He walks past the nurses' station to greet her, noticing the immediate exhaustion that clouds her gaze as she looks up at him.

"How is she?" Alexis asks, but he can tell it's more out of obligation than true concern. It's no secret that his daughter is far from fond of his position as a sentinel at Beckett's bedside from morning to night. He can't blame her, understands that Alexis hasn't been happy with him since he jumped between Kate and a bullet nearly a week ago, but he's yet to will himself to retire from her hospital room.

"Getting better every day, still won't let me help her go to the bathroom," he jokes, earning the nod of Alexis's head.

"I'm sure she wants to maintain as much of her dignity as she can," she answers with a shrug. "Even though you've already seen her at her worst."

"Yeah, well, she doesn't remember just how close we were," he sighs, watching Alexis bite her lip, something he's convinced she subconsciously picked up from Kate. "She did have her first memory of the shooting today, though."

Alexis's eyes flash back to him, lip still between her teeth. He can't tell if it's hope or dread in her gaze. "She did?"

"It was small, really small, and… painful for her," he hedges, rubbing the back of her neck. "Just a brief moment after she was shot, lying in the snow.."

Alexis looks away. "Does she know what you did? How you tackled her?"

"No," he sighs. "She doesn't remember me being there."

His daughter crosses her arms over her chest. "Which means she doesn't remember what you said to her."

He doesn't like the challenge in Alexis's voice, the way she roots for the demolition of his relationship with Kate when she used to share his hopeful attitude of growth for more. He understands it, can easily comprehend why Alexis feels the way she does, but it doesn't mean he agrees with it.

"It's been a week and she barely remembers the basic facts about her life, so no, that one hasn't come back yet," he informs her, moving past her to grab her book bag. "Come on, let's grab some lunch."

"Dad, I didn't come to meet you for lunch. We were supposed to go pick up our tree today… Christmas is just over a week away, remember?"

He pauses, his stomach knotting with guilt. He keeps forgetting that they're venturing deeper into December, closer to Christmas; he's failing to keep up with traditions that he knows hold meaning for his daughter, the promises he made to her as a little girl and is at risk of breaking for Kate.

"Okay, okay, let me just grab my laptop bag-"

"We don't have to go," Alexis states, earning the lift of his head. She's wearing a neutral expression, but she's never been a good liar, never able to hide much from him. Her golden red hair is like flames floating around her face, highlighting the icy sheen in her eyes. "We can just reschedule, or order a tree, something easier."

Castle drops her bag onto the seat she was occupying and takes her shoulders in both of his hands, turns her to face him so he can look straight into her eyes. "Listen, I know I've been spending all of my time here and I'm sorry for that, for neglecting not just you, but this special time of year. You know how much I look forward to our Christmases together."

Her lips quirk weakly. "I know. Things are changing now, though, aren't they?"

"Kate was shot, but she's going to be fine. I'm going to be fine," he admits, because he knows Kate hasn't been the only one Alexis and his mother have been worried about.

"Dad, she wasn't just shot in the chest. Her memory was wiped," Alexis reminds him, not that he needs it. He has at least five mental meltdowns a day over that information. "She doesn't remember you and it's breaking your heart more than anything else she could actually do would."

His mouth feels dry, throat constricting with a thick swallow.

"I was angry with her, with you both. You put yourself in danger for her on a daily basis and she just lets you because she's too scared to admit it," Alexis mutters, shaking her head as if the whole ordeal is ridiculous, but she's lost him with that last part.

"Admit what?"

Alexis meets his eyes, rolling them when the confusion fails to leave his. "That she feels the same way you do about her. She has to."

"I don't think-"

"No," Alexis raises her hand between them. "I don't spend much time around her, around the two of you when you're together, but I'm not an idiot. Do I want you to be with her? No, not really. She's too big of a risk."

Oh, that hurts. Disappointment slicing him right down the middle.

"But does she make you happy?"

He purses his lips, rallies his own courage. "She does."

Alexis sighs, nods her head with her mouth strung in a tentative curve. "Yeah, I thought so. And that's all I want for you, Daddy. I don't want you in the crosshairs or running into burning buildings-"

"That was once," he defends weakly, earning a Beckett-worthy glare for that one.

"But I do want you to be happy. And she makes you happy," his daughter murmurs, covering the hands cupping her shoulders with her own. "I like Kate. It's never been that I haven't. She just… and now without her memory-"

"It's going to come back," he says with conviction, even though he shouldn't. He shouldn't be so convinced himself, but she can't forget him, everything they've been through, not for long. "I'm going to make her remember."

Alexis tilts her head in curiosity. "How?"

"By being there for her," he shrugs, knowing how unsatisfying it sounds, but it's all he knows how to do. It's all he's ever known how to do with her.

"What if you have to start all over?" Alexis inquires, dragging his hands from her shoulders.

"It's not the option I would choose." He holds onto his daughter's fingers and swings their hands between them. "But if that's the one I'm given, then we've already started."

Alexis gives him a rueful smile. "Not a bad start."

"No, she likes me," he grins, finally earning a small chuckle from her. "Now, come on, let's go get the tree."

"Dad," Alexis stops him, squeezing their tangled hands. "I think we should wait, wait until Kate's out of the hospital. You'll be miserable away from her."

"I won't be miserable, I'll be with you," he argues, the smile on Alexis's face thankfully failing to fade.

"Fine, not miserable then, but worried. I've heard you talking with Detective Ryan and Esposito, I know you guys think she's too vulnerable to the people trying to kill her here."

Dammit, when did she manage to overhear that?

"You may have a point," he concedes.

"Speaking of, where is she going to stay after this?"

"I'm not sure yet. I need to talk to Jim, the doctors. She'll likely be out of commission for a couple of months, lots of physical therapy, other kinds of therapy…"

"We all need therapy," Alexis muses wryly, tugging a surprised huff of laughter from deep in his chest. It's been a while since he's been able to laugh, since any of them have found a reason to. "I wouldn't say no, though."

Castle furrows his brow at her. "To what?"

Alexis offers him another reluctant lift of her lips, her eyes brimming with knowledge. "When you ask if I'm okay with her staying at the loft."

"I wasn't-"

"Yet."

He huffs at her again, annoyed with her wisdom, how she can swing from childish to clever so quickly. It's one of the few traits she got from him, according to his mother.

" _If_ that becomes a possibility, we'll discuss it more later."

He sighs and hooks an arm around his daughter, hugs her tight against his chest. She burrows into him, burying her face in his clavicle and letting him rest his chin atop her head.

"It's going to be okay, Pumpkin," he promises her, one he'll make come true. "Thank you for being patient with me."

He feels her cheek smudge against his chest as she nods, squeezes him a little tighter.

"It's going to be okay," she echoes, and he wills himself to believe his own words.


	3. Chapter 3

When the quiet opening of the door wakes her, she expects to open her eyes to the increasingly familiar sight of Rick Castle walking towards her. But when she squints through the afternoon light, it's Josh Davidson with his leather jacket, locks of black hair, and killer smile gleaming in the sunlight.

"Hey babe," he says softly, a bouquet of red roses in his arms.

She's been able to pick out the parts she must have liked about him, the qualities that attracted her to him; he's a nice guy, unquestionably handsome, has a seemingly good heart. But there's something missing, something she can't find in him no matter how hard she tries, likely has already tried.

They were never meant to last and she always knew that, didn't she?

"Hey Josh," she returns, her throat dry and raspy from rest. She has no desire to raise her voice, though, to upset the fragile workings of her chest. She's going to be released soon, she's heard the doctors discussing it outside her door, and she can feel the ebb of the pain-numbing drugs from her system.

"So, I just spoke with Kovac about your release," he starts off, reading her mind, and sets the roses on her bedside table. "He thinks you're stable enough to be out as early as tomorrow, we just have to make living arrangements."

"Living arrangements?" she murmurs, grateful when he reaches for the pitcher of water beside the vase of roses.

"Yeah, you're not going to be strong enough to live on your own again just yet. You'll need someone to be around while you go through the most difficult stages of your recovery," he explains with the patience of a doctor, pouring a small glass of water for her and helping her take a few sips.

She watches Josh sit down in Castle's chair beside her bed and wishes standing wasn't such a struggle. She can barely make it to the bathroom and back, sit up long enough to eat a small, liquidated meal or for the nurse to wash her hair. She's an invalid and she needs to be strong; she needs to hunt down her memory, uncover all of the forgotten information of her mother's case, the forgotten information of her job, the forgotten man who loves her.

She needs to be strong enough to break up with Josh Davidson right now.

"I think I need to talk with my dad first," she murmurs, nodding her appreciation when he gingerly take the cup of water to place back on the table. "Probably stay with him."

Josh's face falls, the puzzled expression clouding his chiseled features.

"Well, I was actually thinking it might be best if you stay with me. I mean, I'm a trained professional and I could care for you better than anyone else could," he points out, his eyes alight with hopeful logic, but Kate frowns back at him.

"Josh, my dad is the only person I truly know right now."

"I understand that, but after speaking with the neurologist, she thinks jogging your memory with formerly familiar environments and activities could help. The more time we spend together, the more likely our relationship will start to come back to you," he smiles, as if it's all so simple. She doesn't know how to tell him it isn't their relationship that she's longing to recover.

Kate chews on her bottom lip. "I don't think that's the best idea."

"What do you mean?"

She lets out a shallow breath. "I don't think we should be in a relationship right now, Josh. You're obviously a great guy, but it just… it doesn't feel right."

"Doesn't feel right," he repeats incredulously, narrowing his eyes on her in scrutiny. "How can you say that? How can you make that call when you don't even remember us yet?"

Indignation rises in her gut, a sensation that strikes as standard with him. "Just because I don't have all my memories back doesn't mean I can't trust my instincts."

"I strongly disagree," Josh scoffs. "Do you know what your brain has done? How it literally got so overwhelmed that it _shut down_ , hid an entire chunk of your life from you? You're coping with tragedy by forgetting against your own will, Kate." He leans forward, hands clasped together while his elbows dig into his knees. "You have no control over what's going on in your mind, but you don't have to protect your heart in the same way. Let me take care of you, let me be here for you."

A headache begins to pound through her skull.

"You're not hearing me."

Josh runs a hand through his hair. "All I'm hearing is you shutting me out, just like you always have."

The ache in her head intensifies, his words snagging and scraping against her skull.

"I'm assuming we've had this argument before," she mutters, carefully bending her arm to lift her fingers to her forehead, pressing down between her brows.

"Yeah, maybe we have." Josh sucks in a breath before pursing his lips, shaking his head. "It doesn't even matter. You're talking nonsense."

She presses the tips of her fingers to the throbbing points of her temples. "Josh."

"No, this is ridiculous. You can't just _end_ our relationship because you suddenly feel it isn't-"

"It's not sudden," she snaps, fisting her fingers in the sheets. "You're always gone. Saving the world." The words start to come unbidden, without preamble or prior knowledge, but fast and sharp and ringing true whether she remembers thinking them, holding them inside all of this time, or not. "I can't compete with that, I would never try, but it just doesn't work. You need someone who will follow you and that's not me."

"Just like you need someone who will follow you? Like that writer who sticks around here like a lost puppy?" he challenges, and oh, this has come up before too, hasn't it?

"Leave him out of this," she warns, her spine stiffening against the support of a pillow, her blood heating with irritation.

"I just find it convenient how you remember the parts of our relationship that were hard for _you_ ," Josh scowls. "Your job caused a lot of issues too, Kate. Your partnership with that wannabe cop who does nothing but make your life harder-"

"That's not true. Castle isn't-"

"How would you even know?" he scoffs, pushing up from his seat, the legs of the chair scraping against the floor. "You know what? Fine. Maybe you're right, maybe _we_ aren't right, but when you come to your senses, when you remember… don't say I didn't try to tell you. That stupid writer is going to get you killed."

She redirects her gaze to the wall, glaring at a glittering arrangement of garland strung across the ceiling.

"Goodbye, Josh."

He storms out, letting the door swing behind him, leaving a blossom of guilt in the pit of her stomach. Josh had a point, she can't completely trust herself, her decisions, while in this state of ultimate confusion and uncertainty, but the relief she can feel flushing through her system provides reassurance, buries most of the doubt.

 _I just wish that I had someone who would be there for me, and I could be there for him, and we could just dive in to it together._

Was she talking about Josh when she said the words circling through her mind?

Kate lowers her eyes to the roses on her bedside table, to the empty chair lacking its favorite occupant.

The man the words were truly meant for?

She sighs, bears down on her lip hard enough to taste the spill of copper across her tongue. She just needs to remember.

* * *

He nearly collides with Jim Beckett in the entrance of Kate Beckett's hospital room, her father wearing a thick coat and a warm smile as he catches Rick by the shoulders. He feels Kate's eyes on them as they exchange a few words of small talk, catches the gentle look in her gaze when he's able to spare a glance her way. She's wearing a loose sweater today, the hospital gowns she's hated finally gone, and her hair in a loose braid that twines its way down to her shoulder.

It makes her look less like the corpse she nearly resembled, more like the woman he once spent every day with.

"Hey, Castle," she greets once her father pats him on the back and passes through the door. "He's going out for lunch," she adds when Castle opens his mouth to ask the question before Jim can escape down the hallway. "Some diner we all apparently like, Remy's? He already knew what to get you."

His heart swells pathetically in his chest, beats with a little too much hope. It's probably insanity, hoping a burger and fries might aid in jogging her memory.

"Glad I stopped by when I did then," he smirks, strolling up to her bedside. "Good nap earlier?"

Something like amusement flickers in her eyes, a pleasant surprise from what he's grown used to in this past week.

"Guess you could say that," she murmurs, her gaze drifting to the coat still draped at his shoulders. "Were you out?"

"Oh, yeah, Christmas tree shopping with Alexis," he chuckles, brushing a few stray pine needles from his arms. "We didn't actually pick one, but there's a place that's a short cab ride away, so we did some browsing."

Kate's lips quirk. "That's sweet." Her hand reaches out to brush along the sleeve of his coat, catching snow and the scent of a fir in her fingertips. "What do I usually do for Christmas?" she asks, her brow in that adorable furrow.

"I - uh, don't know. We've never... celebrated together," he admits, noting the barely discernible fall of her features. He hates his answer, that he's never been sure, that he never took the time to ask. But his heartbeat picks up with determination, the need to change it. "But this year, you're spending it with me."

Her bloodshot eyes narrow on him and her hand falls back to her side. "What?"

"Of course, it'll ultimately be up to you," he prefaces. "After speaking to your dad, all I know about your Christmases these days is that you don't spend them together anymore."

Something in her face darkens, shadows dancing across her eyes. "Yeah, I remember that. We don't… we can't."

"He told me," Castle says gently, his gut twisting at the guilt, the grief on Jim Beckett's face when he mentioned how spending the holidays as a family was another thing Johanna's death altered in their lives. "That's why I asked him what he thought if you spent this holiday season recovering at the Castle household."

Kate blinks at the offer, her expression soft but unreadable, her eyes falling to her lap.

"Rick, I know she's only come in once, but I've seen the way your daughter looks at me. She would hate that."

He loves her more for that, for thinking of his kid and her comfort level above her own.

"I've already spoken to Alexis about it. We came to an agreement."

She arches an eyebrow in response. "Which is?"

He grins back at her. "Private. Therefore, the only person who may have an issue with this scenario is your boyfriend."

He can feel his grin falter a little. He didn't actually consider how great of an issue that may grow to be. There's no question that this would elicit a fight between her and Josh, whether her memory is intact, whether she actually _wants_ to accept his offer or not. Shit, what is he thinking? Maybe the person she needs to be with right now is her actual boyfriend, not-

"I don't have a boyfriend," Kate says calmly. "We broke up."

He can't control the skyrocket of his brow to his hairline. "You did?"

Oh, but he can't let his hopes rise; she doesn't remember, doesn't know him or Josh as well as she did before her shooting. He can't trust this decision she made to end such a significant relationship-

"Don't look at me like that," she growls, warning in the glare she shoots him. "I know what I'm doing, who I am. I'm missing a few years of memory, but nothing else."

"Okay, okay," he concedes, lifting his hands in submission. "I trust you."

"At least someone does," she mutters, raising her arms as if to cross them over her chest before thinking better of it.

"So then it really is solely up to you," he picks up, carefully plopping down in his usual spot near her hip. "We have your guest room, the physical therapist you and your dad decided on just a few blocks away, _and_ all the Christmas cheer you could ever need. Alexis got a head start on decorating right after Thanksgiving."

" _My_ guest room?" she catches, tilting her head at him. "I've stayed there before?"

Of course that's what she picks up on first.

"Once," he confirms, the image of her in his kitchen every morning, sipping coffee or flipping pancakes, fills his entire chest with a longing so fierce it makes his bones ache. "Your… well, your apartment kind of got blown up and you needed a place to stay. So of course you stayed with me."

"Of course," she parrots, studying him with just a little too much intrigue before her eyes widen. "Who the hell blew up my apartment?"

"This was over a year ago, you have a new apartment," he assures her. "I actually like the new one even better. It's in a way nicer area and it's got this cool layout and-"

"Castle."

"Sorry. It was a serial killer, long story. It'll come back to you," he waves off with ease. He can tell she believes it about as much as he does.

"Rick," she murmurs, receiving the quick rise of his attention at the use of his first name. The last time she said his name like that was amidst a fight, moments before she told him they were over. "If I don't remember, if it never comes back, will you tell me?"

He offers her what he's sure is a pitiful attempt at a smile and places a tentative hand on her knee. "Of course, it's a pretty good story, actually. Lots of thrilling moments and riveting acts of heroism-"

"Not just about the serial killer blowing up my apartment," she clarifies with a quiet huff of laughter that's tainted by the sorrow staining the corners of her lips. "Not just that story. You're a writer?"

"Yeah." He swallows, not sure he likes where this is going. "You won't admit it, but I'm pretty sure you read my work before you even met me."

The smile on her lips is so sad, so remorseful, it punctures a few extra holes into his heart. "Then I'm sure you'd tell our story well."

He abandons her knee to grasp her hand out of reflex, loose and careful not to extend her arm, but holding on. She lowers her gaze, hooks her fingers around his.

"I won't have to," he murmurs, watching her lips curve into a frown. "But I will. From start to finish, if you want."

Her head lifts, eyes hazel and flickering with light for him. "I'm being released tomorrow."

"I'll get a mini Christmas tree for your room."

The grin spills across her lips and she hooks her thumb around his. "Deal."


	4. Chapter 4

Her father helps her prepare her week's worth of meager belongings from the hospital, packing them into a plastic bag within minutes.

"You sure about this, Katie? If you think you'd be more comfortable staying with me at the cabin, I'd be more than happy to-"

"I'll be fine, Dad," she assures him, offering her best attempt at a smile. It's the third time he's asked her since he arrived this morning and part of her wants to take him up on it, stay with her dad in the secluded safety of a cabin upstate. But they both know how badly Jim tends to struggle through the holidays, how sacred his solitude becomes as the months grow colder. That aside, Josh mentioned that in a medical professional's opinion, the best way to trigger a memory was to spend time around the people and places she's forgotten.

What better place to start than with the person she's missing the most?

Technically. Not _actually_ missing him. How can she miss someone she doesn't even know?

"This will help," she says aloud, more for herself than her father's peace of mind.

No, her dad doesn't really look worried at all.

"I think so too," he agrees, smiling back at her like he knows too much.

"Why won't you just tell me?" she sighs, attempting a glare at him from the edge of her hospital bed. But Kate inherited her killer glare from her mother; her dad has always been immune.

"Because it's not mine to tell," Jim shrugs, stuffing his hands into his coat pockets. "Besides, what makes you so sure you won't remember on your own?"

"It's not that." Even though it is. "I just want my memory jogged now. I need answers _now_ , Dad."

"Just give it a little time, honey," he murmurs, stepping forward to cup her cheek. "Maybe a little faith too."

She scowls at him for that before redirecting her gaze to the walls strung with garland and glittery red bows. She doesn't know when the hospital staff covered every patient's in Christmas decor, but she could do without it. "Do you know how I usually celebrate Christmas?"

His brow creases slightly. "I thought you remembered your years on the force pretty well?"

"I do," she sighs, closing her fingers around the sleeves of her sweater slipping past her knuckles. "But Christmases are still a blur. I can remember ours, what they used to be, how they changed. But I can't remember what I do every year now. If I do anything at all."

She frowns down at her knees, the fleece sweatpants that Lanie picked up for her encasing her legs. She should have asked her best friend while she was here, should have grilled Lanie about every little detail. The M.E was overjoyed to see her, to question her doctors and learn all about her condition, but when Kovac suggested she refrain from overwhelming Kate with memories, Lanie struggled to hold back, especially when Kate asked about Castle. And yet all she got out of that question was a spark of mischief and knowledge in Lanie's eyes.

Yeah, she definitely should have pressed harder. Lanie would have caved.

Jim eases forward to sit down beside her, his face lined with concentration. "As far as I know, since we… stopped celebrating, you've taken on your own tradition at the precinct." She glances up to see him, the hint of guilt in his eyes, the melancholy twist to his mouth. "'Keeping watch', you call it. That's your tradition."

Taking the Christmas shift every year so that others on the force who did have families could spend such valuable time, keeping watch over those families and all of the others, ensuring they'd fail to end up as hers did. Yeah, if she had any kind of tradition, that would be the one she chose.

"I won't be able to work the Christmas shift this year," she murmurs, the disappointment seeping through her system. The one tradition she has, the only one she's good at, and she has to give it up.

"Just one year, Kate," her dad tells her, rubbing a gentle hand at her back. "You've watched over this city every holiday season for nearly ten years. You can allow yourself just one to heal."

Her chest simmers in reminder of just how miserable healing is bound to be, how excruciating it already is.

She leans gingerly into her father's side, inhaling the faded scent of woodsmoke and the cologne he's been wearing since she was a child. Her dad is careful with the arm he winds around her, exhaling a deep breath when he fails to elicit a hiss of pain from between her teeth and pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"You already know your mother would agree," he whispers, a smile as soft as the resting place of his side in his voice.

Her own lips can't help but quirk. "I remember her, every detail of her came back. I was always so afraid before, terrified I would forget exactly what she looked like, how she sounded, the way she laughed."

Jim squeezes her shoulder before letting go. "Me too, honey. But I can't forget your mother, even if I tried, and I know you won't either. She'll always be here," he murmurs, easing back to tap a finger to her temple before glancing down to her chest, her dilapidated heart. "And there as well."

He stands from the hospital bed and begins to gather the few of her remaining possessions lingering on her bedside table, his fingers pausing over the oversized watch that once belonged to him.

 _For the life that I saved._

Her brow furrows at the black leather between her father's calloused fingertips.

 _It's your dad's, right? That's why you wear it?_

Her fingers automatically rise to her neck, the naked skin. "Where's my chain? Mom's ring?"

 _And this is for the life that I lost._

"I packed it for you, sweetheart. It's safe, I promise," her dad informs her, clasping the watch around her wrist.

Her head begins to pound, that telltale ache that ensures a budding memory is trying to form, that it's going to rip through her like a trail of thorns first and still leave her with a head full of questions.

 _We were supposed to go to dinner together - my mom, my Dad, and I, and she was gonna meet us at the restaurant, but she never showed._

She remembers the conversation, the context, the searing slice through her chest that bleeds every time she talks about her mother. But she can't envision the setting, can't picture the scene or the timeframe in which it occurred, can't see the person she was even talking to.

 _My Dad took her death hard. He's sober now. Five years._

She clutches the watch in her hand, reverently brushes her thumb over the clear face of it.

 _So, I guess your Nikki Heat has a backstory now._

"Nikki Heat," she tests the name out on her tongue, opens her eyes to stare up at her father. "Who's Nikki Heat?"

Her dad glances to the opening door in what looks like utter relief.

"I think you should ask her creator."

* * *

"What kind of name is Nikki Heat? Why would a character with that kind of name be based on me?"

This car ride is both amusing and becoming his own personal hell. He wants to tell her everything, wants to explain the Nikki Heat series, just how great her role in them has been, but he also doesn't want to disrupt her own process of remembrance. More than anything, though, he just needs to keep her distracted in the backseat of his town car, keep her from focusing on how every twist, turn, and bump along the road triggers ripples of agony across her face.

"I'll let you read the books sometime, Beckett. The name will grow on you."

"It's a stripper name," she growls, her fists shining ivory at her sides, her jaw sharp enough to slice. She's trying so hard not to crack, to give way to the pain visibly lancing through her entire frame.

"Well, she is a little slutty-"

" _Castle_."

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," he swears when she looks as if she may risk injury to land a smack to his arm. He takes one of her balled fists, cradling it in one of his palms and circling his thumb along her knuckles. "Mostly."

All he receives is a fierce glare for that one and it makes his heart revel in delight. It almost feels normal, as if it's just another bout of banter between them.

"Maybe I don't want to read about your stripper cop," she mutters, releasing a slow breath through her nose as they speed over another pothole.

"Too late, you already have. I'm sure a walk through of your apartment will prove that."

"Maybe I should have taken my dad up on his offer for the cabin after all," she scowls, but her closed fist unfurls to curl around his hand when the car finally slows to a stop in front of her Tribeca apartment.

He winks at her as he opens the door, hunching his shoulders against the bitter chill of the wind and doing his best to block Kate from its bite while he helps her out of the car. She's bundled up in an oversized hoodie, a light coat that won't weigh too heavy on her shoulders, but she's still so brittle, so fragile, vulnerable to the brutal cold of winter.

She can't afford to shiver, breathing is hard enough of a task for her.

"Wow," she hums, shuffling onto the sidewalk. Her eyes rove the exterior of the building, approval simmering in the gold specks of her gaze. "Nice place."

"You have great taste," he nods, slipping one of his hands to the small of her back to steady her.

The snow from the sidewalk that leads to her building has luckily been cleared for the day, but by the time Kate manages to cross the distance with her small steps and shudders of pain from the cold, from the mere exertion of movement itself, minutes have passed and they've just made it inside the apartment lobby. She's practically frozen.

She leans on him in the elevator, her entire body tipping forward and trembling with effort. Castle wraps a loose arm around her waist, lays his hand to the cool skin of her nape, glazed in sweat.

"I should have just taken you home, I'm sorry," he whispers, pressing his cheek to the chilled cartilage of her ear. "I should just come on my own-"

"H-hush," she gets out against his shoulder. "I told you I wanted to come, wanted to see where I live, want to pick out my own clothes to pack."

"Still stupidly stubborn," he mutters, earning the hard pinch of her fingers to his side that makes him jerk.

"Don't call me stupid," she growls, tilting her chin just enough to dig into his collarbone.

"I didn't call you stupid, I called you stubborn," he hisses, wanting nothing more than to nip at her ear in retaliation. "I'm the stupid one, always willing to follow your stubborn lead."

Kate's head lifts, a smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth when she looks up at him. He strokes the line of her vertebrae with his thumb and her gaze flickers to his mouth.

The elevator doors slide open onto her floor.

He keeps his hands on her, stabilizing, but takes a firm step back, ready to guide her out into the hall.

"Only a few steps away now," he encourages, trying to erase the way she just looked from his mind, the way her eyes caressed his mouth, the way her cheeks colored with something other than the cold.

The way it reminds him of that night in the parking lot, the way she tasted on his tongue.

Kate follows him out into the hall wordlessly, shrugging off the claim of his hands and instead walking alongside him down the short length to her front door. Castle draws her key from his coat pocket, unlocking the door and holding it open for her.

She steps inside her own home with uncertainty clinging to her every move, her eyes scanning the place with trepidation before the spark with near immediate recognition.

"Oh," she murmurs, venturing deeper inside with a little more confidence. "I know this place, I remember living here, shopping with Lanie for it."

He shuts the door behind them, feels his heart calm a little once he turns the lock. He's doing his best to ignore it, but having her out in the open is coaxing his paranoia to the surface, filling his head with worse-case scenario. If her shooter comes after her again, the first place they'll search is her apartment.

"Lanie and I spent most of that summer apartment shopping," she continues, pulling him back from thoughts that terrify him, images of her lying bloodied on the beautiful wood floors beneath their feet- "Were you around then?"

That has his full attention snapping back to her. "What?"

"The summer I bought this place," she picks up, studying the room as if the memories of that summer are all replaying for her across the apartment. "Where were you?"

"I… well, we've actually never spent a summer together," he tries to explain, shrugging when she glances back to him with a deep crease in her brow.

"No Christmases, no summers," she murmurs as if she's checking off a list. "When do we actually spend time together, Rick?"

The use of his first name throws him just a little, has an inappropriate flare of want simmering in his gut.

"At work, usually," he murmurs, tamping it down. It's just a pleasant change from her addressing him by his first name in her home without a fight brewing between them, that's all. "The summer before last, we were in a fight, and the summer when you found this apartment, I was in the Hamptons with Gina, and this past summer, we saw each other but I had book promotions, Alexis's college stuff, and your mother's case kept us both pretty busy."

She leans into the support of the living room wall, eyeing him curiously. "Gina?"

"Ah," he sighs, rubbing at the back of his neck. Shit. "My ex-wife, and publisher."

She blinks, an old wound she can't possibly understand reopening in her eyes when they meet his. Reopening one of his own. "You left me for someone else?"

"Left you?" he states, an unwelcome combination of confusion and indignation swirling in his stomach. "I couldn't leave you. You weren't mine."

She swallows hard at that, diverts her gaze to his chin, lost and embarrassed, and wow, he's an asshole.

"Kate-"

"Are you… with her?" she questions, staring back at him with so much weariness lining her face and dragging her brows into a furrow, her lips into a frown.

"What? No," he denies quickly, covering the few steps of space between them as he speaks. "Kate, that… it was over a year ago. You were seeing someone else at the time, another detective, and I asked you to come with me to my house in the Hamptons. You said no and -" He scrapes a hand through his hair. "And I asked Gina."

She tilts her head back against the wall, her gaze falling to the living room sofa, anywhere but him.

"Kate?" He's close enough to reach for her, to take advantage of the allowance of touch she's given him since she awoke, but he waits, forces himself to wait.

She glances back to him in askance, looking as if she's unsure she wants to hear whatever it is he has to say next.

"It's why I couldn't stay away as soon as I got the chance to work with you again. You told me to go home, you were always telling me to go home, but I wouldn't listen. Couldn't."

"Stubborn," she whispers, the corner of her mouth twitching. "Both of us."

"Incredibly," he nods, reaching out to tuck a straying strand of hair from her braid back behind her ear.

She turns her head to see him, watching him with exhaustion exuding from every pore of her skin, every blink of her eyes. He knows she must be in agony, her body suffering from the car ride, the walk to her apartment. She needs to sit, but before he herds her over to the couch, he lets his touch linger along her jaw for just a split second, grazing the harsh edge of bone.

"Just so you know, I missed you," he confesses, words they jokingly exchanged when he returned from that summer away in the Hamptons without her. Words he wished he could have professed then like he is to her now, with all the honesty he should have given her back then.

He missed her every day of that summer. Almost as much as he misses her now.

She tucks her jaw to her shoulder, trapping the cradle of his palm there for a moment.

"Whether I admitted it or not-" A soft exhale of her breath skitters across his wrist, heating his pulse. "I know I would have missed you too."

* * *

Her heart still feels stuck in her stomach an hour later, that sinking feeling she so vividly remembers now like a nuisance.

 _I couldn't leave you. You weren't mine._

Why does it bother her so much? That simple sentence that is simply stating fact. Did it eat at her like this before, the fact that she was never his and he was never hers? When her memories were intact and she was able to know him without having to try so hard?

Obviously not, if she was dating another man. A different man, a detective who's still blurry to her mind's eye. Not Josh. No, her recollection of him has become quite clear. She remembers the summer when she met the heart surgeon, enticed by their mutual interest in motorcycles and leather jackets. But no, Castle leaving for a summer away with another woman - his _ex-wife_ \- is still a blank. Just like everything else where Castle is concerned.

Kate purses her lips and tries to focus. She's standing in the middle of her closet, a room packed with a decent share of clothing on racks and rows of shoes, and she's supposed to be packing. Well, picking out things for Castle to pack since she can barely use her upper body.

She curls her fingers around the cashmere sleeve of a sweater. She won't be able to remain standing for much longer, the twinging sensation in her chest tightening like the gears of a wind up doll.

"Hey Beckett? Almost done?" He's leaning against the entryway, peering inside the closet. His lips fall into a puzzled frown that makes him look like a little boy, curious and confused, when he notices her empty hands. "Can't decide?"

"Not really," she murmurs, turning her back on the plethora of unmade decisions and shuffling towards him. "Does it really matter? I'm just going to be laying around all day, going to physical therapy."

"Hey, I might take you out on a walk through the park sometime. Not to mention, we have to go see the Christmas lights display in Brooklyn, plus there's all those extravagant arrangements in the store windows. Oh, and the Rockefeller Center, we have to go see the tree and head over to Bryant Park-"

"Rick." His eyes are sparkling with excitement, lighting up like the magical Christmas landmarks of the city he speaks of. She doesn't want to dull their shine, to crush his Christmas spirt, but the thought of any of it feels utterly impossible. "I can barely even walk around my own apartment for more than a few minutes."

He ponders this for a moment, but something tells her he's already thought it all through.

"There are other forms of mobility we can choose to exercise."

Her brow arches. "If you think you're going to roll me around New York City in a wheelchair-"

"Shh, we'll discuss the details later."

"Castle." The curl of his hands around her hips has her shutting up, stiffening ever so slightly.

"We've never had a Christmas together," he reminds her, glancing down to his hands as if he's just realized where he's put them, as if they've never spent time there before. Huh, she's disappointed.

He goes to drop them; she hooks her fingers around his wrists, staying him.

The uncertainty dissipates from his gaze, brimming with delight instead.

Oh, this is a dangerous game isn't it?

"It may not be exactly how I hoped our first Christmas would be, but I still plan to make it special," he finishes, circling his thumbs at her hipbones.

"What exactly were you hoping our first Christmas would be, Rick?"

She's noticed that with every use of his first name, something like need ripples across his face, fire lining his features. She's starting to enjoy making him burn.

The swirl of his thumbs come to a pause.

"As long as I get to spend it with you, it's everything I could hope for, Beckett."

She tightens the grip of her hands around his wrists, sealing her thumbs to his pulse, feeling it pound beneath her touch.

"Are you usually this sappy?" she mumbles, twisting her lips to stop the returning smile when he smirks at her.

"Yes," he nods, unfurling his fingers from around her bones, forcing hers to do the same. "And we're going to be having marathon Christmas movie nights on the couch to make up for the days you didn't get to spend immersed in holiday cheer, so you'll want the correct attire for that too," he muses, grinning as if he's been made proud by the roll of her eyes. "Why don't I just grab a few things for you? I know your style pretty well."

She raises an eyebrow at him, but doesn't argue. "Sure, go for it."

"Okay, direct me towards your underwear drawer to start with."

"Shut up," she groans, brushing past him with as much ease as possible.

"Kidding," he tosses over his shoulder, shooting her another one of those lopsided grins she's starting to… appreciate more, before she can abandon him for the living room.

She migrates to the couch, clutching the furniture's arm as she lowers herself to the cushions. The coffee table in front of her is littered with empty coffee cups, a manilla folder teetering precariously on the edge, and a Charlie Brown style Christmas tree in the middle.

Somehow, she already knows who provided that piece of decor.

Her eyes trail along the space while she gingerly eases back into the sofa, studying the artwork displayed along the walls that wins her over a second time, the knick-knacks scattered across the surfaces, the bookshelves crammed with literature. She cringes to find that he was right, that there's a small section on the shelves dedicated to Richard Castle.

The place feels well lived in, feels like her. Not quite like a home, but close enough.

She stretches just enough to shoot an arrow of fire across her side, just enough to reach for the case file on the table, drawing it into her lap, and flipping it open. A professional photo of Montgomery in uniform stares up at her, post-it notes in her handwriting pressed against the inside flap of the manilla folder.

 _Third cop._

 _Raglan, McCallister, Armen's murder, framed Pulgatti._

 _Add information to murderboard shutters._

Her brow creases deep and she presses the tips of her fingers to the image of her captain. Feels the cool touch of his flesh beneath them, stained in blood from the battle with Hal Lockwood, the Dragon's men. The war he waged for her life, one he gave his own for.

She startles harshly, the sudden jerk of movement thrashing her demolished heart around in the shaky foundation of her chest.

Murderboard shutters.

Kate grits her teeth and grips the arms of the sofa again, heaving herself up. It brings tears to her eyes, has the sizzle of pain in her chest spreading like wildfire, gasoline leaking through her blood, into her veins and all over her bones.

She drops Montgomery's file back to the table as she goes, her lungs heaving with effort as she crosses from the living room to her office. See doesn't waste time reacquainting herself with the space, moving straight for the shutters that are already cracked and waiting for her.

She has to press one of her arms to her side, the incision scar forming just below her ribs still so fresh and fragile and threatening to rip free of its stitches, but her other hand reaches for the shutters, easing each one open until the entirety of the window pane's contents are revealed.

Until her mother's murder board is in full view.

* * *

Castle hefts the duffel bag over his shoulder, scanning his eyes over the contents of her closet once more to ensure he isn't forgetting anything. But she has a point, they won't be doing _too_ much for at least the first couple of weeks, so comfort is key and he has a number of button up shirts she could borrow in the meantime. To avoid the painful hassle of pulling clothing over her head, lifting her arms when she can barely move them without evoking fireworks of agony in her chest.

Plus, he wouldn't mind seeing her in his clothes.

He exits her closet, striding through her bedroom and expecting to find her on the couch, maybe exploring her bookshelves if she can stand to be upright for that long. But her living room is bare, no sign of her save for the case file left askew on the coffee table.

Montgomery's case file.

Shit.

Castle heads for her office, finding her immediately, silhouetted by the darkness of her homemade murderboard. His heart clenches with worry, it's too soon for this. The doctor said not to overwhelm her and here she is standing in front of the most overwhelming part of her life.

"I knew there was something else about that summer that I wasn't remembering," she whispers and he drops the luggage to the floor, starts towards her.

"Kate-"

"Montgomery's case file on the coffee table," she murmurs, her eyes never leaving the window panes of case notes, victims, all an intricate web stemming from the picture of her mother's dead body at the center. "I remember the hangar now, I remember everything that happened."


	5. Chapter 5

_"I remember the hangar now, I remember everything that happened."_

"I'm sorry," he rasps.

The sight of her body bowed over Montgomery's surrounded by a slew of the dead, has yet to stop haunting him, those final sounds of gunfire echoing through his nightmares. The way she collapsed and sobbed beneath the cover of his hand trying to keep her quiet, willingly allowing Montgomery to sacrifice himself to keep her safe. All Castle cared about was keeping her alive; a goal he and her captain shared. It's why Roy called him that night, stressing that Kate was in danger, knowing it was all he'd have to say.

Kate turns away from the murderboard that left him gutted the first time she showed it to him. He doesn't want to look at her, to see the blame hiding in her features now that she remembers. They barely spoke that night, but he knows she resents him for holding her back, for tearing her away from the fight and leaving Montgomery to die alone. He knows there's likely a part of her that hates him for that; he can understand, relate even. He kinda hates himself for it too.

But he already knows that if given the chance to do it all over again, he wouldn't change his choice. He would still listen to Roy in that moment, would still carry her kicking and screaming out of the hangar to safety. He would do whatever it took to save her life, then and now.

"Why are you sorry?" Her voice is quiet, far from demanding, not rhetorical either. She genuinely sounds as if she doesn't understand the apology, but if she remembers that night in the hangar, she already knows why.

He scrapes a hand through his hair, feeling the beginnings of a headache congregating at the front of his skull.

"Because this is all my fault," he finally confesses, the truth of it all, choking him up. "I'm the reason you reopened your mother's case again for the first time in years, I'm the reason Montgomery is dead, the reason you were shot, the reason you can't remember-"

"Castle, what are you talking about?" she whispers, her voice growing closer, but his eyes are stinging and he can't bear to lift them to her, to let her see.

"I'm sorry," he says again, doing his best to breathe deep, to get it together. It's not fair to her for him to just-

"Rick," she growls, pleading twined around the grind of his name past her teeth, and then her hands are on his waist, hooking in the fabric of his shirt. "This is not your fault. None of this is your fault. You - were you even there that night? It's all blurry, I just remember Montgomery, the men who killed him, but you…" Her head is shaking against him, frustration simmering in her voice. "I don't see you."

Somehow the realization that she remembers it all, remembers every horrific moment except the ones she shared with him that night, makes it all so much worse.

"I was there," he rasps, apparently making it worse for both of them. She groans quietly, buries her face in his neck. He doesn't know where to put his hands, but he can't help touching her while she's huddled against him like this, comforting himself with the sharpened edges of her shoulders in his palms. "Roy called me, told me you were in trouble and to meet him at the hangar. When I showed up, the two of you were talking, Lockwood and his men were coming, and Montgomery… he told me to get you out."

Her chin digs into his collarbone, her bone trembling against his.

"You wouldn't go willingly so I had to pick you up, carry you," he recounts, the guilt of it washing over him once more, thick and bloody and staining his skin. "I got you out of the hangar, held you in the parking lot until it was over."

A sharp noise of grief escapes her lips, fusing into the skin of his throat. God, he's forcing her to live it all over again. But her hands are fisting in his shirt, her quivering chin stilling under the pierce of her teeth to her bottom lip, her body rallying against the upheaval of her emotions.

"You didn't cause it, you aren't the reason for any of it," she persists vehemently, her voice shaking but sounding so much like the Kate Beckett he knows, the warrior of a woman who will fight to the bitter end for what she believes in. He never thought he'd be one of those things, especially when she no longer knows who he is. "You didn't kill Montgomery, you didn't shoot me."

He's squaring his jaw too tightly to speak, refusing to let himself open his eyes and risk the tears pricking at the corners. The sudden press of Kate's chest against his has them startling open, though. Her arms are wrapping low around his waist and her cheek rests along the ridge of his collarbone, her heartbeat sealed and thundering against his.

"I thought you were gone," he blurts, his words thick and cracking, unable to help picturing her bleeding out in the snow dusted ground, the stark contrast of crimson against white. He doesn't realize he's banded his arms around her, loose enough to refrain from causing her any serious discomfort but firm enough to feel every soft breath leaving her body and filling it again.

"I'm right here," she promises, her thumbs swiping back and forth along the small of his back, her cheek pressing harder to his clavicle. Reaffirming her presence, her survival. He buries his face in her hair, inhaling hospital issued shampoo and the scent of her hidden underneath, sweet like cherries with a hint of spice and oils. "It's okay, love. It's okay, I've got you."

He closes his eyes, lets the sound of her voice, her words, infiltrate the layer of panic that's spread through his senses. It really is okay - she's here, she's alive, she's… calling him 'love'.

"Love?" he echoes, her body immediately stiffening in his arms.

She drops her hands from his waist. "It's - it's what I heard you call me," she defends, dislodging the tuck of her body from against his. "I didn't know if you just - or if we were-"

"Kate," he murmurs, pushing past the mortification of realizing she's heard him call her that in the times he was sure she was sleeping or just in too much pain to notice. God, how many times has he called her by a word that she could never be ready for, that he's only ever said to her when she's in agony, literally dying beneath him?

She ducks her head away from him, uncomfortable, and he instantly hates himself for ever calling her out for the endearment. But if this is their second chance, then he vows that they're going to talk about things this time.

Yeah, he's certain doesn't she remember any of the things they never talked about. Things they should have talked about.

 _We kiss, we nearly die frozen in each other's arms._

"Thank you."

Her gaze rises to glance at him from beneath the shade of her lashes. The embarrassment that flushed her cheeks dissipates and she releases a quiet sigh that visibly costs her, has her curling in on herself just a little. Her hand is unsteady when she lifts it between them, but he doesn't try to discourage the touch of her thumb to the corner of his eye, smoothing away the remains of a tear.

"Roy made his choice," she murmurs, her eyes solemn. "He did what he thought was right and you did what he told you to do. You got me out." She swallows hard, accepting it. "I'd be dead if you didn't."

Her fingers slip away from his face and she offers him a sad attempt at a smile. He hands are still shaking.

"Here." Castle reaches for the rolling chair behind her desk, closing the window shutters as he goes, hoping they'll remain closed for a while. "Sit for a minute and then we can go."

He eases the chair around until it's positioned behind her and hovers his hands at her arms to help lower her into the seat.

"I got it," she murmurs, descending with her lips pursed in what has to be pain.

"I'll grab you some water, a pain pill-"

"I don't want a pill," she mutters, but she's lacking her usual fight.

"Half a pill," he compromises, glaring back at her when she narrows her eyes at him. "You've been on your feet for way longer than you should be and we still have a car ride uptown to endure." She grimaces at that. "You need a pill."

"Fine," she grumbles, closing her eyes and leaning back into the chair, defeated yet triumphant. "But just half."

"Deal," he promises, his lips twitching as he crosses into the living room, leaving her office and headed for her kitchen. But his heart is still rabbiting in his chest, her words still rattling in his brain.

She still doesn't remember, but she's calling him 'love' and fighting to ease his guilt, insisting that he isn't to blame. He wants to believe it's true, wants to believe her, but he can't help but wonder if she'd feel the same if all of her memories were intact.

Rick pauses in his brief trek through the living room, the small Christmas tree on the coffee table catching his eye. He gave it to her mere days before everything went to hell, showing up on her doorstep the day after another Thanksgiving spent without her.

" _I know it's small, but I just wanted you to have some Christmas cheer, Beckett."_

 _She accepted the tree with a gentle curve of her lips and the curl of her fingers around the base of the decoration, the brush of them to the thin branches of bristling pine needles._

" _This isn't fake," she observed, surprise hitching her brow upwards._

" _No, I found a place that grows real ones. It probably won't live as long as a big Douglas Fir or Cyprus, but if you keep watering it, it might make it to Christmas."_

Her smile was one of the sweetest thing he's ever seen.

Despite the time she's been gone, the days that the tree has likely gone unattended to, it's still green along its minuscule branches, still standing straight albeit a bit crooked. Still alive, just like her.

He expected she would have thrown the thing out the night she told him to leave and not come back. When she told him that they were over.

Maybe they were never over, maybe she never meant it. Maybe they've always had a chance, memory intact or not.

He grabs an extra cup of water for the tiny tree in her living room.

* * *

She doesn't know what to expect when they finally arrive at Rick Castle's loft. He attempted to prepare her for a 'Christmas explosion' throughout the ride from her apartment to his, distracting her from the dulled spear of agony in her side, through her chest, by verbally providing a visual of a massive Christmas tree, toy train sets that loop through the entire first level of his home, and figures of Santa Claus standing sentinel at every corner. But none of it truly braced her for the moment he ushers her inside the front door.

"Wow," she murmurs, hoping her eyes aren't too wide as they stand in the foyer, surrounded by golden strings of light twinkling across every room, garland decorating every surface, snowflakes sparkling from the ceiling. It almost distracts her from just how massive the place is.

"I was wondering when you guys would get here," Alexis calls out from the living room. She looks like the star of a Hallmark movie, dressed in a warm looking sweater with her red hair tied into a braid that falls down her back, a glossy gold ornament hanging from her fingers.

The simple sight of his daughter in his home has the image of Alexis and Rick glittering in shades of blue and green flickering through her mind. But there's no context, no setting or dialogue, just two figures aglow in flashing lights.

"The first time I came here… it was lit up then too. Blue and green?"

"Oh! She's right!" an older woman donning red hair and a satin robe exclaims, descending down a stairwell glistening with garland. She sheds the robe to reveal a vibrant pantsuit and claps her hands together as she joins them in the foyer. "Katherine, you magnificent creature, back from the dead and looking as beautiful as ever. It's so wonderful to see you!"

"Mother," Castle warns at her side, slowing the woman - his mother, apparently - from rushing towards her with arms outstretched and smile wide.

"She's remembering the first time she came over," Alexis adds quietly, her eyes that icy shade of blue Kate remembers from the hospital. They're softer now as they assess her, but still cling to the cold. "We were playing laser tag, wearing our gear."

"That's right," Castle beams, a hint of fondness filling the lines of his face. The grin he turns on her makes her wish she could share whatever it is he's feeling, because all she recalls from that vague hint at a memory is the sensation of utter confusion, and the same urge to marvel over his home. "Your face was priceless."

"Dad," Alexis sighs, shaking her head with a small smile adorning her lips.

"What? It was." He glances between Alexis and Kate, the amusement still alight in his eyes. "Kinda like it is now."

"Hush, don't embarrass the poor girl," Castle's mother tuts, approaching Kate with a warm smile.

"Kate, my mother's pretty unforgettable, so I'm sure she'll come back to you in no time," Rick informs her wryly. "But this is Martha Rodgers."

"What a privilege to make an introduction into your life for a second time," Martha proclaims, the smile still intact. She lifts her hands to Kate's cheeks, her touch welcoming, motherly, and pats them softly. "Though, I do hope I make my return to your memories sooner rather than later," she adds with a wink, smoothing two fingers over Kate's temple.

She definitely didn't plan for the lump of emotion in her throat, the strange gratitude for Martha that spills through her sternum. "I think you will."

Martha releases her to pat Castle's cheek next, informing him that she's off to the store to fetch some sparkling cider and makings for hot cocoa.

"Alexis has been a busy little elf all day, putting the finishing touches on the decorating. It's put me in the Christmas spirit," Martha rattles on, brushing past to retrieve her coat from the closet near the door. "See you later, darlings."

His mother glides out the door, her exit as grand as her entrance.

"Yeah, she'll come back to you," Castle murmurs confidently, his attention drifting back to his daughter. "It's looking perfect, Pumpkin."

"Thanks, Dad." Alexis glances to a tub of ornaments at her side. "I left all of your favorites to hang and some extra, just in case." His daughter looks to Kate from beneath her lashes and… oh, maybe she doesn't completely hate her after all? Or the spirit of Christmas has infected her as well, persuading her to embrace the idea of forgiveness.

For whatever it is Kate has done, since Kate herself has yet to figure it out.

"Want to sit for a bit? Tell me which branches look the most neglected?" he murmurs, his breath hot and caressing the shell of her ear.

"Sure." She lets him take her arm, one hand cupping her elbow in what's become routine, while the other splays at the small of her back, and guide her to the large sofa. She tries not to feel Alexis's gaze on her the entire time.

* * *

Kate falls asleep on his couch, a baby blue blanket with a white snowflake pattern draped across the coil of her body, her hair free of its braid and spilling in waves across the black leather of the sofa.

"She's different, but still her," Alexis comments, her voice just above a whisper.

Castle hesitantly steers his gaze away from Kate to find his daughter studying the detective. Kate drifted off minutes after he aided her descent onto the couch, sleeping through Martha's return as well as his and Alexis's completion of hanging ornaments on the tree.

He needs to wake her soon, before that measly half of a pain pill he had to cajole her into taking hours ago completely wears off.

"Still her," Castle agrees.

"She's remembering more?" Alexis inquires, quirking an eyebrow at him. "That memory when she came through the door, that was quick."

"Yeah, it's getting easier to trigger them lately," he concurs, willing the excitement, the hope bubbling in his guts, to dissipate.

"But still no memories of you specifically?" she asks a little softer, empathy in her eyes when he meets them. Regardless of how his daughter feels about Kate, he knows she would never relish in seeing him suffer.

"No, not yet, Pumpkin," he admits with an attempt at a smile, trying to hold onto that sensation of hope, but he's starting to think that maybe there's a deeper reason Kate can't seem to remember him.

Everything, even the gritty details of her mother's murder, Montgomery's death, her own shooting, is coming back, and yet he remains nothing but a blur at best. If her subconscious initially erased her memories to protect her, what if it's keeping him from reclaiming his place in her mind for a reason?

His heart clenches with the possibility. He may be no good for her, she may be better off never remembering who he is and all he's done, but he doesn't know if he can give her up, if he can let her go.

"Do you think things will change when they all come back?" Alexis asks, dusting her fingers along the crumbling remains of a cookie angel ornament she made for him in first grade.

Castle spares a smile for the angel that steals his attention, lifts his spirits for a split second, before flicking his eyes back to her. "What do you mean?"

"Just… do you think she'll still be so open with you?"

"Open?" he repeats, the word practically foreign when it comes to Kate Beckett.

"Dad," Alexis deadpans. "You can't tell me you haven't noticed. I mean, I know I haven't spent a _ton_ of time with the two of you in the past, but she's way less… guarded now."

"Yeah," Castle murmurs, glancing back to Kate, the slack state of her features, the rise and fall of her chest beneath the blanket. He thinks of all the times she's let him touch her in the last week, the moments she's gravitated towards him for no reason other than to be closer, all the times she's asked him to stay. "You may have a point."

"I hope it doesn't change," Alexis says softly, abandoning her station at the tree to circle towards him.

He can't help allowing his gaze to linger on Kate. "Hmm?"

"Just…" His daughter shrugs, coming to a stop in front of him. "I like this version of her a little better, you know? Maybe… maybe it wouldn't be so bad if she never-"

"Stop," he murmurs, shaking his head.

"Dad, I just mean-"

"I know what you meant." He pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and his forefinger, wills himself not to get upset with her. She isn't trying to make things worse, he knows, but the idea of Kate's memories of him never returning... it's too panic inducing to think about right now. Despite how strong of a possibility it is. "But I don't want just this version of her, Alexis. I want all of her back. The good and the bad."

Her eyes narrow on him, but it's a cover for the frustration creating a glaze across the blue of her irises. "Even the part that keeps choosing a case over you?"

"I want the person I've spent the last two years with. I want everything about _us_ back, every case we worked together, every joke we ever shared, every argument we ever had." It's breaking him a little, how badly he wants it all back. How badly he just wants her back. "Everything."

"I'm sorry," his daughter apologizes, wrapping her arms around his neck. "I get it, I'm sorry."

He doesn't know if she truly does or not, but Castle squeezes her back tight, appreciates the fact that she's trying nonetheless.

Alexis holds on for a long moment before letting him go, lifting on her toes to press a kiss to his cheek that automatically tugs a smile across his lips.

"She'll remember," she murmurs, offering him a returning smile that holds steady. "How could she not?"

He knows it's just her way of reassuring him, but it's a welcome comfort. One he needs at the moment.

"I'll see you in the morning, Dad."

"Night, Pumpkin. Thanks for making the place look so spectacular."

"Every year," she grins, padding silently past the couch for the stairs.

He waits until he hears Alexis's door click shut before he approaches Kate, lowering gently to the couch near her feet. Her socked toes stick out from beneath the throw and he covers one exposed foot with his hand, feeling her bones curl under his palm.

"Kate?" he calls quietly, gently squeezing her foot, but she doesn't stir. "Hey, Kate, gotta wake up, lov-"

Oh, yeah, best not to let that one slip again.

Not that it matters, she still isn't budging. Rick sighs and rises from the couch to lean over her just slightly, brush his knuckles along the rounded edge of her shoulder.

"Kate, let's move you to a bed," he coaxes, finally feeling her stir, hoping to ease her into awareness without eliciting a jerk of movement. "Don't want you to get stiff."

Her brow furrows and he unthinkingly smoothes his thumb to the disruption along her skin, soothing it back into relaxation.

Defeating the purpose, Rick.

"C'mon Kate, time to go to-"

"No," she exhales on a breath, curling in a little tighter on herself. "Don't go."

"I'm not," he answers instinctively, fingers migrating to sweep along her ear. "I'm not, I'm right here."

"Good," she slurs, tilting into the touch of his hand, causing his heart to soar into his throat. "Can't drown."

"No one's drowning," he promises, fingers skating into her hair, forehead falling to rest against hers. He can't help it. "I've got you."

The flutter of her lashes just barely grazing her cheeks almost goes unnoticed, doesn't even register in his brain, until she speaks.

"You smell like a Christmas tree," she rasps and he quickly withdraws, enough to look down at her, see her eyes half-lidded and staring up at him.

"Kate," he sighs, the breath of her name like respite, and cradles the back of her skull like he did that day in the cemetery. "Let's get you to bed, okay? I've got your medication in my room, some water, applesauce if you're hungry-"

"Your room?" she mumbles, some of the haze clearing.

"It's closer. I'll sleep upstairs for now," he reasons, but she's awake now. And ready to argue.

"I am not sleeping in your room."

"Kate, it's fine. I'm going to sleep upstairs until you can actually climb the stairs."

"I didn't come here to put you out," she growls, attempting to sit up, hissing with the consequence.

"You aren't putting me out. You think I haven't slept up there before? I picked out every single bed in this house, they're all equally comfortable," he assures her, but merely receives an eye roll in return.

"I'm a guest, I'm sleeping in the guest room," she says, as if the statement is final.

She's always been a master at interrogating, debating, winning, but when it comes to his home, they're on even ground and she has no idea what she's up against. Especially when her well-being is on the line.

"If that's your argument, then you know a guest is supposed to be accommodated," he points out, crossing his arms. He has the power here, for once, standing over her body curled up on his couch, glaring up at him. "My guest has limited mobility at the moment, therefore she should have the room that will meet the restrictions her ailment is currently providing."

Her eyes spear through him. "Asshole."

"Ooh, that means I won, didn't I?" he smirks, easing an arm around her back and helping her slowly shift into a sitting position.

She grudgingly allows him to help her the rest of the way into standing, leaning into his side with a grunt of pain.

"Is it bad?" he murmurs, the amusement draining from his voice to make room for the concern clouding his mind. She's practically doubling over now; he controls her collapse back onto the couch.

"I can't," is all she can get out and he sits down beside her, arm still around her waist. The waves of her hair have fallen like curtains from around her face, but he swears he can hear the unwelcome tears in her voice, the ripples of agony he can feel traveling through her upper body forcing them to burn in her eyes, leak down her cheeks.

"It's okay, we'll let it pass." He presses in a little closer, her ribs, the side of her body that was sliced open to dig the bullet out, sealed against his.

"Pressure feels good," she whispers, her body trembling but trying to steady with the shallow breath she exhales. Her arm is curled against her chest, her palm fused to the spot between her breasts where he knows the entry wound resides. "It'll pass. Long enough for me to move a little."

He nods. "It's a short walk, just a few steps through my office."

"Tree looks beautiful," she says suddenly, starting to lean heavier against him. "Sorry I missed you decorating."

"You needed the rest," he murmurs, wondering if he can just slip an arm beneath her knees, prop her up against his chest, and carry her bridal style to his room.

"I'm so tired," she confesses, an admission he could never even get out of her when she'd pull an all nighter at the precinct. But he doesn't think a case could ever break her like losing her memory to a bullet has.

She whimpers when he maneuvers his arm beneath her legs, draws her into a cradle against his chest. But once he's standing steady and she's stable, she loosens against him, her head falling to rest at the juncture between his neck and shoulder, the heat of her breath staining his collarbone.

Rick carries her to his bedroom, doing his best to tuck her into bed without waking her, combing her hair back and whispering soft assurances to her when she stirs. He'll coerce her into taking a full pill first thing in the morning, along with some actual food and plenty of fluids.

For now, he makes sure she's safe and sound in his bed and focuses on finding a few hours of rest for himself.

He leaves the bedroom door open so he can listen for any sounds of distress through the night and grabs a softer pillow from one of the arm chairs, tossing it onto the couch with the throw blanket Kate left behind.

It's as close as he can be without actually sharing a room with her, something he doesn't feel comfortable, not now, when she's vulnerable and unsure of him. No, the couch is a comfortable one and he'll happily take it as his bed for the next few weeks.

* * *

Rick is woken by the buzz of his phone atop his chest, startling him into a sitting position. He swipes his thumb across the screen.

"Castle," he answers abruptly, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, willing his mind to catch up with his clearing vision.

"Mr. Castle."

He doesn't recognize the voice - male and deep and mysterious in a way that makes him just a little uneasy.

"Yeah," Rick tries not to yawn, taking a deep breath and leaning back into the arm of the sofa.

"I'm a friend of Roy Montgomery's. I'm calling about Detective Beckett." He's instantly wide awake, his system turning to ice. "We need to talk."


	6. Chapter 6

She has nightmares in the hours that follow, choked sobs and whimpering noises that have him slipping from the couch to rush into his bedroom, soothing the sounds of distress and the tremble of her frame with the gentle touch of his hands to her shivering shoulders, her tear-stained cheeks.

"Everybody's gone," she gasps at one point, her eyes flickering open for a heartbeat, but she wasn't with him, still in the grips of whatever dream was dragging her down. "Guy who shot me, Mom, Montgomery, you."

"No, I'm not gone, Kate," he swore to her softly, sitting along the edge of the bed near her hip like he did throughout the week they spent at the hospital. He dusted the tips of his fingers along her jaw, tracing the contours of her face, the sharp edges of bone and smooth dips of skin, brushing his thumb to the corner of her mouth over and over again. "I'm not going anywhere, I promise."

He spends more time with Kate's unconscious figure in his room, not sleeping but staying, than he does on the couch.

It has him relieved that he's unable to sleep that night, lying awake on the couch with John Smith's words playing on a loop in his mind.

 _Keep her away from the case, Mr. Castle. If you don't, the deal is off. If she digs, they will kill her._

 _The only thing she's digging for right now is her memories._

 _And what lies in those memories, Mr. Castle? Everything you should be trying to help her forget._

His mother is the one to find him in the morning, trotting down the stairs and peering over the sofa's head in concern. It's not that she's surprised to find him there, he's sure everyone except Beckett figured out that he wouldn't be staying so far away from her in the night. It's the exhaustion in his features, the worry slithering through his guts and up his spine like a snake, ready to lace around his neck and constrict him to death, that catches her attention.

"Richard, what's wrong?"

He can't keep it to himself, can't keep it swirling around in his mind any longer, and tells her everything.

"Do you have any idea who he was?" his mother asks, sitting on the opposite end of the breakfast bar, her ring adorned fingers clasped together around a cup of coffee while he can only stare down into his.

"Just that he's a friend of Montgomery's. He said he owed Montgomery his life, that Roy sent him some files, files that if they ever got out, could hurt some very powerful people" He purses his lips, his throat too thick, too dry to swallow. "They were using those files as a threat to keep Montgomery's family from ever being harmed. Beckett's safety was also part of the deal."

Martha shakes her head. "But they went after her anyway."

"He didn't get the files until after she was shot." His mother huffs in frustration and yeah, he can relate. All of this could have been avoided, Kate could have been spared. "He says she's safe now, on one condition." Castle sighs, braces his elbows on the kitchen counter. "She can't go near the case. If she does, he can't guarantee her safety. If she digs, they will kill her."

"And this man, you believe him?" Martha clarifies, the fear for Beckett, for him, looking as alive in her eyes as it feels thriving in his stomach.

"I do."

"Then you have to tell her," Martha says adamantly. "You kept secrets from her once before where her mother's case is concerned and it blew up in your face."

"If I do that, as soon as she's able, she'll put on blinders and run out into the line of fire. I can't let that happen."

"You are not going to change her, Richard. She's going to keep going out there and she's going to keep digging."

"Not if I stop her. She will listen to me," he insists, hopeful with it, clinging to it. "I can steer her away."

His mother shoots him a doubtful look, disappointed almost. "For how long?"

Months, years, forever. It doesn't matter. None of it matters except keeping her alive.

He meets his mother's eyes with finality, lets it echo through his voice. "I'm not going to lose her again."

"Darling, I know you love her," Martha says softly, rising from the bar stool and starting for the stairs. "But is it worth it?"

His mother doesn't wait for an answer and he doesn't try to offer one. Because no matter what anyone else thinks, how stupid and reckless it may make him seem…

Yeah, she's worth it.

* * *

Her head is swimming with memories itching to form in her sleep, still gnawing at her when she wakes, so close to fruition but still out of reach. Perhaps it's the countless number of reminders surrounding her in the space of his bedroom - the scent of him on every surface, the photos on his nightstand, the glimpse of his clothes in the open walk-in closet. It's almost enough to smother the pain blooming wild and hot inside her ribcage.

"Have I stayed in here before?" she asks when he walks in, her question falling to the wayside the moment she lays eyes on him. "Castle? What's wrong?"

"Wrong? Nothing," he responds quickly, too quickly. "You remembered something?"

"Not necessarily," she answers, but her attention is still honed in on the haggard state of his appearance. He doesn't look as if he's slept at all, the last twenty-four hours lining the skin of his face. "Rick, tell me."

"Tell you what? Everything's fine," he tries to convince her, moving across the room towards his closet. "Alexis and I have a few Christmas themed activities planned for the day, so would you like a red or green button down to wear?"

She scowls at him. "Rick, I can barely trust anything right now and you're going to lie to me?"

That stops him, has him backtracking to the bed with a sigh. She waits for him to sit beside her, grateful for the prop of pillows at her back aiding her in sitting up, allowing her some extra mobility in her arms. Enough to snag her fingers in the thigh of his jeans.

He covers the curl of her fingers within seconds and she flips her palm up.

"I'm sorry, I'm just… tired," he murmurs, stroking his thumb along the inside of her wrist. "Didn't sleep well."

"You came in a few times," she recalls, hazily able to recall the low murmur of his voice at her ear in the dark, the soft comb of his fingers through her hair, the warm cover of his palm at the pulse of her neck, anchoring her. "I kept you up."

"No, I was too afraid to sleep," he admits, his gaze on the loose tangle of their hands. "Didn't want anything to happen while I was out."

"I'm not the only one who needs rest, Castle," she murmurs, slipping her hand out from beneath his to lift it to his jaw. She can't hold the position, can't hold him like she wants to, but she's able to graze her fingers along the angle of bone, caress his skin beneath her fingertips.

He catches the slim length of her digits in his and turns his head, presses his lips to her palm.

It makes her heart hitch painfully, accelerating in a way it can't yet handle. Everything about this, about him, is still so new, but her heart has been skipping beats for Castle since she first met him in that hospital room just over a week ago.

"You don't need to worry, Kate. I promise."

She huffs quietly, her fingers scratching at his chin, her thumb falling against the small divot of a scar there.

"Isn't that what people who care about each other do?" she mumbles, feeling the tiny pinpricks of stubble beneath the whorl of her thumb. "Kinda comes with the territory."

She thinks his eyes are bluer than she's ever seen when he looks up at her.

"You may have a point," he concedes, dipping his chin to seal his lips to her thumb.

It's moments like these in which she wonders _how_ they were never together. The few memories that did manage to form in sleep, the weeks she spent here after Scott Dunn blew up her apartment, the mornings she brewed coffee and cooked breakfast in his kitchen, the nights she stayed in a welcoming guest room upstairs, the evenings she would walk through this front door after a long day at work and fight the urge to call it _home_.

She may not be able to remember him, but she can remember the loft. She can remember this bedroom, _his_ bedroom.

"You've stayed in here before," he confirms her question from earlier, letting their hands descend back to the bedspread, the cerulean of his gaze speckled with gold now. It's what he looks like when he's hopeful, eager and earnest. It makes her lips quirk. "After your apartment burned, when you were staying here for a few weeks, you had a dream that I burned in the fire. You came in here that night to make sure it wasn't true. And you stayed," he finishes, flicking his eyes to the armchair at the opposite side of the bed. "Keeping watch."

"I wish it would have happened then," she admits, her fingers absentmindedly toying with his.

Castle's thumb hooks with hers. "Hmm?"

"I know I only have pieces right now, pieces of my life, pieces you're missing from," she prefaces. "But from what I've put together, we've been dancing around this thing since… since we met."

"Well," he mumbles, smoothing the top of his thumb over the nail of hers. "It started out pretty surface."

"You just wanted to get in my pants."

"And you didn't want to get in mine?" he gasps, teasing her, and she grins, starting to like this banter they seem to possess with such ease. "But it definitely turned into more. I… it quickly became about so much more than sleeping with you, Kate."

"I've gathered." No, he definitely doesn't look at her like a man solely lusting after her. Like he said, there's so much more. Too much more. "I wish we'd stopped dancing around it, started dancing together, before."

Castle twines his fingers through hers. "Me too, love."

He winces at the slip, parting his lips to excuse it, she's sure. So she squeezes his hand, waits for his gaze to rise back to hers.

"Red." She nods to his closet. "I'll wear red."

* * *

The makings for gingerbread cookies are spread across the kitchen, ingredients for the dough, various designs of cookie cutters, and cookie sheets splayed over the entirety of the dining room table.

"I know that booklet on how to make ninjabread men is somewhere," Castle insists, digging through the pantry, coming up empty.

"Do they have to be _ninjabread_ men?" Kate asks quizzically, eliciting a small laugh from Alexis. The two of them have been sitting together for the past fifteen minutes, talking quietly, politely, but talking nonetheless. A positive sign in his book.

"No, Dad just has to add his own touch to almost every tradition we have," Alexis sighs, arranging the plethora of cookie cutters in the more classic, boring shapes. "He usually alternates between zombie marshmallow snowmen, alien rice krispie treats, or ninjabread men."

"Well, with those choices, I guess I can't complain," Kate muses, toying with a snowflake shaped cutout.

"No, the others are way worse," Alexis confirms, pushing back from the table. "Dad, chill out. I'll go check the upstairs closet."

"Why would it be in the upstairs closet?" he whines, emerging from the pantry empty-handed and distraught. Mostly for the sake of that amused glimmer in Kate's eyes.

"Because that's where all of our lost stuff usually ends up," Alexis mutters, already bounding up the stairs.

"It better be up there," he grumbles, crossing the length of the kitchen to prop his arms atop the chair next to Kate's that Alexis abandoned. "Feeling okay?"

"I'm fine so far," she assures him with a brief narrow of her gaze. Same Beckett, ready to kill him for hovering. "Mind helping me stand for a few minutes though?"

"Sure thing," he acquiesces, grateful that she's asking for once.

He eases her chair out from the table enough to maneuver her into a standing position, shuffling with her into the kitchen until she can lean against the safety of the counter.

She's wearing one of his more subdued red button down dress shirts and a pair of sweatpants he grabbed from her apartment yesterday. Her hair is still falling in loose waves around her face from the braid it was restricted into and he's… getting distracted.

He refuses to indulge the temptation to appreciate her body in the drape of his shirt, reminding himself exactly what's underneath - wounds, stitched up and trying to heal. The last thing she needs is for him to act like some creep.

"Better?" he inquires. He's starting to learn that she gets stir crazy after a while, needing the physical exertion every now and then to refrain from growing too stiff.

She flexes her hands atop his forearms before he dislodges his from her elbows. "Yeah. Where's Martha?"

"Out Christmas shopping. Oh, but she'll be thrilled to drop everything and hear about your returned memories of her when she gets back," he grins, honestly quite eager to witness his mother's reaction. Hoping it'll lift her spirits where Kate is concerned.

"Does she usually do this with you guys?"

"Ah, not typically no. My mother isn't really the baking type."

Kate hums her acknowledgement, her gaze drifting back to the necessary tools for gingerbread men.

"Has anyone else ever participated in these traditions you and Alexis have?"

"Well… actually, no. I've kinda kept them for myself," he admits a bit sheepishly, remembering the few times Gina had the opportunity to be a part of these traditions he considers so sacred, how he purposely made those opportunities few and far between and often during the busier times in her schedule.

Kate gnaws on her bottom lip.

"I don't want to intrude on your family's traditions, Castle," she says, glancing away from him, her gaze drifting towards the office. Planning her retreat.

Ah, the real reason she felt the need to get moving.

"But you are family," he argues, reaching across the distance to snag her hand. "You have been for a while now."

"You sure everyone feels that way?"

He sighs, squeezes her cool fingers. "She cares about you. I just scared her at the funeral when I-" He shifts, not wanting to go down that path. Not today. "She's glad you're here, we all are."

Kate gives him a withering look. "Yeah, because I'm not the same person."

That throws him, has him crowding her against the counter. "What are you talking about? Just because you don't remember a few things?"

"A few things?" she repeats incredulously, flexing her hands within his grip, but he won't let her go. "Castle, I don't even remember _you_."

It stings a bit, even though he knows that wasn't her intention, and he shakes his head through the bite of her words.

"It doesn't even matter. You will eventually."

"Rick," she growls, but he lets go of her hand to lift one of his, placates her even through the fierce glare she's shooting him. That alone has him questioning how she can say she's not the same person.

"But even if you don't, you know me, Kate. You're here now with me, making Christmas cookies with me and my daughter. You're with me."

She squares her jaw and hooks her unrestrained fingers in the fabric of his shirt, clinging to his waist. Her eyes fall to their tangled hands.

"I didn't want to forget you," she murmurs. "I know the doctor said it was my brain's way of coping, protecting itself by blocking out anything remotely painful." She rolls her eyes at the rehearsed explanation, irritated with herself, her own mind, for things beyond her control. "But no matter what happened…" Her gaze flickers back to him, her lips quirking into a pitiful attempt at a smile. "There's no way I'd willingly forget you, Castle."

Shit, she isn't crying, but her eyes are sparkling like the Christmas lights decorating the entirety of the loft. Golden, dazzling, and devastating him.

Rick sighs and raises the hand not twined with hers to the back of her neck, smoothing his thumb along the soft base of her skull. It's where he pictures her memories hiding, stored away under the baby fine hairs and vulnerable bone. Buried treasure he can't get to.

She leans into him, her forehead coming to a rest against his chin, his lips.

"Kate," he whispers, his heart aching for her, yearning for her, his tongue heavy with words long forgotten. Locked away under the swipe of his thumb along her flesh. "I-"

"Hey guys," Alexis comes bounding down the stairs. "Told you. That cookbook somehow ended up in the upstairs closet."

Kate jerks away from him, back bumping into the counter, a small smile immediately pasted onto her face for Alexis even though she probably just sent an earthquake of agony through her entire body.

His daughter slows to a stop in front of them, the gingerbread cookbook clutched in her hands, her gaze flicking between the two of them. An eyebrow raising. "Everything okay?"

"Of course," Castle replies, stepping forward to wrap an arm around Alexis's shoulders. "Kate was just asking about our traditions."

Alexis's inquiring eyes soften. "Oh, yeah, the cookies. We've been doing this one forever," Alexis smiles, aiming it at Beckett and causing his heart to exalt. Mere days ago, she was telling him how little she approved of having Kate in their lives. "It's fun and they always taste amazing."

"I don't doubt it," Kate grins back, sparing him another glance as his daughter begins to sort through the ingredients on the table.

* * *

Kate hasn't had much of an appetite since she's been cleared to eat real food. Her diet of liquids and soft foods has hardly been appealing, unlike the full plate of gingerbread cookies now sitting on his dining room table, warm, rich in scent, and decorated in various styles of icing. She manages to consume at least one, one of Castle's ninjabread men, spreading a grin of delight across his lips.

"Alexis will be proud of our work," he preens from his spot across from her at the table, already munching on his second cookie. His daughter left halfway through the baking process, accepting a call from a boyfriend Kate didn't know the girl had. Alexis mentioned an 'Ashley' earlier that morning, Kate just wasn't aware the friend she assumed Alexis was talking about was a boy. "She's used to my decorating skills, but I think she'll favor yours."

Kate rolls her eyes, unable to help the curve of her mouth when she flicks her gaze to the plate of cookies. The differences between his cookies and hers are stark. Gingerbread men smeared in bright red icing - " _it's ninja gear, Beckett, they have to be covered head to toe"_ \- indicating his creations, while hers don simple designs of white icing, delicate lines, and intricate tracings across their surface.

"You saved some for her to decorate, right?" Kate ensures, recognizing the disappointment in Alexis's face when she had to leave while the cookies were still in the oven.

"Yep." He nods to the oven, dipping the leg of one of his ninjas in a glass of milk. "I'm keeping them in there so they don't harden too much."

Kate glances to her glass, frowning at the "necessary source of calcium" Castle put in front of her. "You know, these would be much better with coffee."

He smirks and pops the last of his cookie into his mouth.

"Say no more." Castle rises from the table to trot into the kitchen. "Do you want regular or the Christmas blend?"

She doesn't expect the simple question, an easy decision, to leave her so flustered. It's not the first time he's made her coffee since she woke in the hospital. He brought her cups of decaf on almost a daily basis, but it does happen to be the first time he's asked her preference on something like this and she doesn't know what the right answer is.

"I don't know, what would she want, Castle?"

He stutters to a stop in front of the island, his hands pausing over the french press.

"She?" he echoes quizzically, watching, she's sure, as she ducks her head, purses her lips in frustration. He's always watching her, she doesn't know if it's a new thing or if he's always followed her every move with his gaze. She doesn't know how it didn't drive her crazy before.

"You're still you, Kate," he murmurs, trying to comfort her, she knows, but it only serves to fuel her irritation.

Because it doesn't feel like the truth.

"Christmas blend is fine," she guesses, always guessing now. She just wants to be her old self again, but her core instincts are her only guide. Well, those, and the man standing in the kitchen, holding a bag of ground coffee beans in his hands and concern in his eyes.

She's tired of being a source of concern, especially for him, but maybe she always has been if the information she's gathered from others, like her father and Josh, from Castle himself, is anything to go by. Maybe it's just part of the package, like she assumed earlier, part of loving someone.

"Even if it never comes back," Castle continues, his voice hesitant, as if he's afraid of pushing too far, pushing her away. "You're still her."

He pours the coffee grinds into the press, flips the burner on the stove to boil a kettle of water.

"How do you know?" she counters, hating how badly she just wants him to say something reassuring, how much she's come to rely on it in this past week.

The steam of boiling water snakes up into the air around him, billowing along the length of his chest to climb his throat.

"Because I know you," he says with confidence. "Probably better than anyone else. Just like you know me."

"Is that so?" she deadpans. Does she even need to point out the obvious fact that she doesn't know him at all anymore?

"Yep, I used to drive you crazy. Always worming my way into your business, your life," he muses, transferring the water to the coffee maker, the soothing aroma of the coffee with a hint of a spice she can't quite identify in the air. "You were always trying to put up a wall between us, but-"

"Why?" she interrupts, but she wonders if she already knows, waits for him to confirm.

"I think you were afraid," he answers softly, not upset, resentful. Not pitying either. Just understanding, patient. Why is he always so patient with her? "I think after losing your mother… it hurt too much. I think you were trying to protect yourself from ever hurting like that again." She wishes she had that cup of coffee now, that she could press the heat of it to her chest, to the bullet wound between her breasts that throbs with every heartbeat.

He's right, she doesn't need her memory to know that much with certainty.

Castle clears his throat and moves towards the cabinets for a mug. "That's why I built a ladder, climbed over the wall. Now I'm pretty sure we're inside it together."

Together but not, she wants to point out. But he looks content with his explanation, his rather accurate depiction of the walls she purposely constructed around her heart over a decade ago, and she doesn't want to take that away.

"For how long?" she asks instead, curious to know how long it's been in his mind. How long did it take him to scale her barriers, boost himself over to the other side? How long did she spend building it higher every time he got too close to the top?

He buys himself a little time with the preparation of her drink, adding extra ingredients that she can't see, before starting towards the dining room table to place it in front of her.

"The ladder took a while to build, had to make sure it was tall enough," he murmurs, lingering at her side. "I don't know when exactly I ended up on the inside, or maybe I'm fooling myself and I'm not actually there at all-"

"No, you're not. Not fooling yourself," she decides, insists. Because there's no other way she would be here now, staying in his loft, trusting him with her life, if she didn't trust him enough to let him close to her heart. She may not have trusted him enough to hand it over just yet, but something inside her makes her certain that he's right. He knows her better than anyone else and it's because she's let him. "You're in there."

Rick leans forward to drop a kiss to the top of her head, sweet and soft and over all too quick. "Thanks for letting me stay."

"Castle?" He pauses in his escape back to the kitchen. "Can we watch a movie on the couch?"

He quirks his brow at her, but she can already see the glimmer of joy in his eyes at the suggestion. "Christmas movie?"

"I was in the mood for a classic, but fine," she mutters, accepting his hands when he backtracks to help her stand.

"This is where we compromise." He draws her up with ease, the movement fluid and only causing her a dull ripple of pain. "A Christmas classic."

She pretends to ponder, to bargain. "Okay, but I choose which one."

"Deal," he eases an arm around her waist in a practiced move of assistance, snags her coffee with his other hand, and walks with her to the sofa.


	7. Chapter 7

One Christmas movie on the couch turns into two, her body draped at his side and his arm secure and welcome around her waist, supporting her spine in a way that eases some of the constant pressure on her incision spot. By the third, Castle's arm is loose and his chest is warm beneath her cheek. By the fourth, he's breathing heavy and she's drifting in and out of sleep beside him.

And she needs to go to the bathroom.

Kate tilts her head upwards to gain a glimpse of his sleeping face. The glow of Christmas lights illuminate his features, shimmering along his jawline, his cheeks, the dark smudges across the paper thin skin beneath his eyes. Despite what he tells her, she knows he must be exhausted and she hates to wake him. Hates even more to ask him to come with her to the bathroom.

It doesn't get more awkward than that.

She lowers her cheek back to his sternum, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat; it almost has her wishing she could stay like this for the rest of the night. She wills herself to manage it for at least a little longer, the thrum of his heart beneath her ear providing a beautiful lullaby-

Until she hears the near inaudible turn of a key in a lock.

Castle's heart skips a little, missing a beat or two, but he fails to stir and his daughter is able to slip in noiselessly.

Kate listens to Alexis tiptoeing through the foyer, inching into the living room on what she assumes are bare feet, and veering towards the sofa. Kate lifts her head before his daughter's arrival, nearly startling the girl when she peers over the head of the couch.

"I'm sorry," Kate whispers, gingerly easing away from Castle, onto the edge of the couch cushion.

"No, Kate, it's okay," Alexis whispers back, already glancing to the stairs. "I just didn't think you were awake."

"Wait, can you... will you help me?" Kate murmurs before Alexis can retreat to her room for the night. It isn't late, but she doubts his daughter wants to be stuck down here with her while Castle is asleep.

Alexis tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, flicking her gaze to her dad. "Possibly?"

"I just need help up, I - I need to go to the bathroom," Kate admits, swallowing hard as his daughter silently circles around to the front of the couch without hesitation. "I don't want to wake him," Kate adds a little quieter, letting her attention slip back to Castle. "I'm exhausting him."

"Here." Alexis holds out her arms. "Just tell me what to do."

Kate grips Alexis's slim forearms as she begins to rise from the couch, going slow, instructing Alexis to just remain steady for her. When she hisses in pain, Alexis flips her palms, clutches Kate by the elbows.

"What? What happened? Did I-"

"No, no," Kate assures her, finally standing and shuffling a few steps closer. "It just pulls. And I've been sitting for too long."

Alexis's gaze drifts back to her father, to the projector screen he insisted on setting up. "Movie night?"

"Yeah," Kate answers sheepishly, nodding her head towards his office.

Alexis catches on quickly, taking careful steps backwards while Kate follows along, gritting her teeth as the agony in her chest, her abdomen, comes awake. It claws up her side to cling to her ribs, prying the bones apart to twine with the burn in her sternum.

"You okay?" Alexis asks once they reach Castle's bedroom.

"Yeah, I'm sorry, it's always worse in the mornings. Or after a nap," she explains, grateful for the support of the en suite's entryway that Alexis helps prop her up against. "Thank you."

"I'll wait out here," Alexis offers, plopping down on her father's bed.

"You don't have to-"

"Kate, you're in pain. If you can't get up, you're either going to be stuck in there or my dad is going to have to help you," Alexis points out patiently, but with a quirk of her brow. "Which would you prefer?"

"Alright, so Little Castle is apparently as stubborn as Big Castle," she mutters to herself, secretly pleased to hear a soft chuckle come from Alexis. "Noted."

Kate manages to use the bathroom and get to the sink without too much trouble, her heart thundering too hard to be considering comfortable as she washes her hands, but at least no one is going to have to rescue her from the toilet seat.

She left the en suite door cracked, so she's able to shuffle out without having to turn the knob, exert more physical agony on her upper body than necessary.

"All good?" Alexis inquires, glancing up from the phone in her hands with a pleasant smile. It throws her a little to see his daughter looking so… approving for a change. She doesn't know what she did, her memories of Alexis not as absent as those of Rick are, but blurry due to what she assumes is association. All she knows with certainty when it comes to his daughter is the discomfort, the guilt and anxiety she immediately felt the first time she saw Alexis in the days after her shooting.

The way Alexis has looked at her since has only confirmed it.

"Alexis?"

The smile lessens just a little, but remains. "Yeah?"

"Can I… can you tell me what I did?"

The smile is gone, her lips and brow falling into a downward curve. "What you did?"

"To make you dislike me so much?" His daughter's cheeks turn as red as her hair. "Sorry, maybe I'm making assumptions, I just… I'm a detective, I can gather that you're not very fond of me, I felt it right away, and if I can't remember, I just want to know."

Alexis twists her hands together in her lap. "It's not… it's not just you or any specific thing you have or haven't done," she tries to preface, but the nerves fail to leave her fidgeting frame and she meets Beckett's eyes with exasperation in hers. "Kate, I like you. I've always liked you. I just know how my dad feels about you and from what I've seen in the past, you never prioritized that. He risked his life for you, on so many occasions, and he'll probably keep doing that as long as he lives-"

"Risked his life for me?"

Alexis shakes her head. "I won't get into it right now. He'll get upset if I tell you all of it, just how many times he's been willing to die for you."

"No." Her lungs begin to constrict, the noose of guilt around her neck restricting her source of oxygen. "I need to know," Kate insists, trying to channel the strength to hear it, clutching the edge of the nearest surface, her nails digging into the wood of his bureau.

"Was Montgomery's funeral not enough?" Alexis gets out, her bottom lip starting to quiver. She quickly pins it down with her teeth, takes a deep breath, dispelling the forming tears in her eyes. "He tried to get to you first, he tackled you, but he was too late. And he feels _guilty_ , I know he does."

Alexis crosses her arms tightly across her chest and Kate wishes she could do the same, because everything inside of her is spilling out, breaking free, threatening to bring her to her knees.

"He's a writer, not a cop, but he pretends he is, pretends he can be your partner in the NYPD. The only reason he was supposed to shadow you was for writing, but it was never about that. It definitely isn't now," Alexis scowls before pursing her lips, her eyes shimmering a stormy shade of blue, conflicted and tired and angry. "He loves you so much and you never knew. Not then, not now. He loves you and he'd-"

"I know," Kate interrupts, her own words ripping her heart into shreds.

Alexis straightens, her eyes bloodshot but narrowing in suspicion. "You know? You… do you remember?"

"No," she sighs, wishing she could. God, does she wish she could. "But from the moment he walked in the door that first day I woke up in the hospital, I just…. knew."

"Then why can't you remember him?" Alexis demands, pleading with her even though they both know it's beyond Kate's control. "He wants you back so badly and I hate seeing him miss you when you're right here."

"You think I don't?" she rasps, her voice hoarse with the harbored grief of it. "I keep trying, keep hoping something will spark my memories and they'll all come rushing back like they have with everyone else. I keep trying to find him but I _can't_."

Her legs tremble in prelude before they finally give out, her body crumbling in on itself against the dresser at her side, sending her to the floor. An unbidden whimper escapes her throat at the shake of her system, the fireworks of pain exploding up and down her side, throughout the entirety of her upper body.

"Kate, I'm sorry," Alexis rushes out, suddenly appearing in the middle of Kate's blurred vision, kneeling down in front of her. His daughter is taking her hands, clutching them hard in hers. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she repeats, tears streaming down her cheeks now.

"I want him back too," Kate confesses, surprised to find her eyes stinging, bleeding tears onto her cheeks. "But I don't want him jumping in front of bullets for me. He can't die for me, he can't die. He can't-"

"Alexis?" The tenor of his voice rushing towards them has relief and dread blooming through her system at the same time, the flash of Alexis's red hair flying across her vision as his daughter's head turns, her hands squeezing tighter around Beckett's. "Alexis, what happened?"

"We were talking and - she just collapsed," Alexis stammers, but she doesn't let go of Kate's hands even as Castle appears at his daughter's side.

"Alexis," Kate croaks, her vision white, his daughter invisible. "I'm sorry."

"Me too," Alexis whispers, her hands suddenly letting go. "Daddy, I'm sorry. We were just talking-"

"It's okay, it's okay," he soothes, doing his best to remain calm from the sounds of it, but his hands tremble when Kate feels them skim her neck, feathering at her pulse. "Just give me a few minutes, okay?"

She's unable to catch Alexis's response, unable to do much more than breath past the sharp spikes of pain piercing through every inch of her.

"Castle," she rasps, feeling the warm touch of his hand on her face.

"I'm right here, love. You're okay, just gotta breathe through it," he murmurs and she realizes her eyes are closed, screwed shut through the worst of it.

She forces them open to see him huddled in front of her, concern electric and sparking in his eyes, turning his irises a blue darker than she's ever seen on him.

"You can't do that," she gets out, her vision clearing enough to allow her a glimpse of his furrowed brow.

He strokes his thumb to her jugular. "Do what?"

"Montgomery's funeral. What you did." She has to lick her lips to continue, swallow down another gasping breath, but by the flash of his gaze back to hers, he already knows exactly what she's talking about. "You are not allowed to do that, to jump in front of bullets for me, to risk _dying-_ "

"There was no chance in hell that I was going to stand there and let you get shot, Kate. I tackled you, but I was too late-"

"It doesn't matter," she growls, watching indignation ignite in his eyes. "You have a daughter, your mom-"

"And you, I have you," he finishes, his words gruff and edging towards a snarl. "I'd take a bullet for any of you."

"No," she chokes, more of those stupid tears pricking her eyes, escaping along the corners to trickle down her cheeks. "I don't want to lose you. Not more than I already have."

"Oh, Kate," he sighs, his irritation deflating like her willpower. "You aren't. I just couldn't lose you either."

His body is like a shield, bowing over her, the cup of his palm to her nape giving her stability and the cove of his neck a haven. She buries her face there, breathes through the last of the aftershocks electrocuting her insides.

"I'm going to pick you up, okay?" he murmurs, his lips right at her ear, brushing the shell.

She nods in response, holds her breath as his arms ease beneath her knees, curl at her back. When he lifts her, she muffles the cry that breaches her lips in his throat, clutching the collar of his shirt in her fists, failing to let go even as he lays her down on the bed.

Tears are still spilling from the corners of her eyes, into her hair. "Can you stay?"

"Let me just get your pain medication, something for you to eat with them," he bargains, swiping his thumbs along the damp skin of her cheeks, her temples. "I'll be right back."

She unfurls her fingers from his shirt, letting him go and watching him jog out of the room, closing her eyes while she waits for him to come back.

* * *

Alexis is perched anxiously on the edge of the couch when he comes bounding out of his office.

"Is she okay?" his daughter asks, her voice quiet but an octave higher than usual, her face twisted with worry.

"She's going to be fine, Pumpkin," he promises, stopping on his way to the kitchen to rest his hands on the high rise of her thin shoulders, willing them to lower with the deep breath she takes.

"I didn't mean to make her so upset," Alexis swears, burying her face in her hands. "We just started talking about everything and it must have been too much-"

"Alexis, it's not your fault." He bends to his knees, wincing as they crack, and waits for her to lift her head. "I know that and so does Kate. Neither one of you knew her body was going to give out on her."

"She's really okay now?" Alexis questions, brushing her fingers along the skin beneath her eyes to catch any renegade tears.

"Yes, she just needs to rest. She's been pushing herself too much since she got out of the hospital," he explains, rubbing his thumbs back and force over her biceps. "I'm going to get her pain medication, some crackers and water, and that should help."

Alexis nods, taking another steadying breath. "I don't want you to die, I don't want Kate to die-"

"Alexis-"

"If she remembers, even if she doesn't, you have to tell her," she insists, surging to her feet and getting worked up all over again. "Maybe if she could just understand-"

"Alexis," Castle says again, a little firmer this time, slowing his daughter's panicked rambling. "Let's just get through this first, okay? Give her some time to heal, and then - then we'll see what our options are."

Alexis leans into his chest, curling up against him like she used to as a little girl. "I'm sorry, Dad," she mumbles, wrapping her arms around his waist.

Rick presses a kiss to the top of her head. "Nothing to apologize for, sweetie." He rubs a hand up and down her back, feels her list further into him. "Go get some sleep. Tomorrow you can tell me how your date with Ash went."

Alexis grimaces as she draws back. "Sure."

Castle narrows his eyes on her. "Everything okay between you two?"

"Yeah." Alexis shrugs. "Fine, I guess."

"Do you want to sit and talk about it for a bit? I can-"

"No, Dad, really," she assures him, offering a tired smile he actually believes. Her eyes trail back to his office, lingering there for a long moment, but they fail to fill up with the anguish that's receded in the few minutes since he came out to find her. "It's not a big deal, I'm just ready to go to bed. Tell Kate goodnight for me?"

"Of course," he murmurs, squeezing her arm before he lets her go, watching her ascend the stairs and listening for the soft closing of her bedroom door before he continues into the kitchen.

He grabs a glass of water, a sleeve of crackers from the pantry, and a cluster of grapes from the fridge. He vows to sort out a better diet plan for her tomorrow, get more protein and healthy fats into her, maybe make her a fruit smoothie for breakfast.

Yeah, good plan.

When he re-enters his room, Kate's still awake, lying propped against his pillows, her gaze trained on the window, watching the snow fall.

"I know I've gotten a lot of my memories back, but it feels like I'm seeing it for the first time," she murmurs, not noticing the food he places on the nightstand or the water he sets next to her pill bottle.

"Snow over the city?"

She tears her gaze away from it to look at him, the pain lining her face finally gone, receded to make room for the wonder that he's so rarely ever seen her wear.

"Yeah, it's kinda magical."

"Yeah," he echoes, easing down onto the usual spot beside her hip as she returns her attention to the white flurries against the dark sky and city lights. But he doesn't take his eyes off of her. "Pretty magical."

"How many days left until Christmas?" she asks, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. "I haven't looked at the calendar in a while."

"A couple," he hedges, not wanting to stress her with the impending holiday. But she was shot in the first week of December, when the snow she's currently admiring was only just beginning to fall, and it's been nearly two weeks since she woke from the days spent lying unconscious in her hospital room.

Christmas is approaching fast and he's so not ready for it.

"My dad said I usually spend mine at the Twelfth, taking the Christmas shifts," she informs him, her lip curving downwards with a small frown.

His do the same, but likely not for the same reason.

"You spent Christmas working every year?"

She hums, glancing back to him with the some of the light in her eyes going cold. "Castle, every winter, as soon as that chill rolls in, I'm right back there in that alley," she confesses, sending a slither of ice down his spine. He's always hated picturing it, the nineteen year old version of the woman sitting beside him, young and free with the world at her fingertips, standing in an alley littered with garbage and her mother's blood. "We still hadn't taken our Christmas decorations down," she murmurs, her jaw tightening ever so slightly. "And by the time my dad and I did, it was like we were putting Christmas away forever. We haven't opened those boxes since."

Oh, it makes his heart burn for her, for the loss of her mother, the loss of innocence, the loss of a holiday he was sure once brought her such joy.

"That's why every year my dad goes up to his cabin and ever since I became a rookie, I have taken the Christmas shift. Because I know that there are families out there that are celebrating together in their homes and I am keeping watch. And that is my tradition," she affirms, a quiet breath shuddering through her. "It's as important as your traditions are to you, but I wouldn't mind new traditions to go with the old."

"New traditions with… us?"

She swallows and flicks her eyes away from him, self-conscious all of the sudden and he wants to kick himself. "If that's okay."

"No! I mean, _yes_. It's more than okay," he replies in a rush. "It just - it implies that you plan to be around for future Christmases. With us."

The line of her brow creases deep. "That's exactly what it implies," she nods slowly. "Look, I don't know what we were like before, but I'm gathering that we didn't talk through much."

He doesn't mean to allow the scoff to slip out, earning a quizzical glare when he does.

"Sorry," he coughs, scraping a hand through his hair. "I was just agreeing with you. Communication's not our strong suit."

"Okay, well, that's why I'm telling you this," she begins, the bronze of her gaze flaring with resolution. "I don't know what we were, what we are." She flicks a glance to his mouth that makes his throat go dry before settling on eye contact. "I don't know if I'll ever remember everything, but whether I do or I don't, I don't want to lose you, Rick. I-" Her cheeks flush a lovely shade of pink that travels down her throat and she ducks her head, doing her best to hide it all behind her hair. "All I want this Christmas is just to be here, to remember. But if I can't do that…" Her shoulders shrug, slow and careful to avoid jostling her chest. "I want to make new memories, build new traditions to go with the old."

He refrains from allowing the stupid smile to spread across his lips, consume his face, but he can't stop the rabbiting beat of his heart, the way it gallops with adoration for her. For the woman who may not remember him, but seems to want him nonetheless.

"I think we can do that," he murmurs. She still isn't looking at him, so he brushes back the curtain of her hair, waits for the lift of her gaze.

Her lips quirk into a smile when it does and she reaches for the hand resting between them.

"Thank you, Castle."

He slides his fingers through hers. "Nothing to thank me for. We just happen to want the same things for Christmas this year."


	8. Chapter 8

It's pointless for him to sleep elsewhere that night. Neither say it, but they both know he'll just be running back and forth until daybreak if he crashes on the couch again, too afraid to sleep through even a moment that she may - grudgingly - need him. At least if he's right beside her through the long hours of the night, he'll wake the moment she does.

After he coerces her into a few bites of crackers, a handful of grapes, and takes part in their usual back and forth argument over her need for pain medication until she submits with a bitter curse on her tongue, she drifts to sleep propped up against him and the pillows. But she doesn't sleep long or well.

Kate is restless throughout the night, tossing and turning next to him in the bed, hissing in pain every time she does.

"Kate," he calls softly, sitting up in the bed with a notepad in his lap. He figured he would try to write while he watched over her, but he's too distracted, too concerned by the speed in which her nightmares strike, jerk her into agony.

He has to comb his fingers through her hair, hoping it'll set her mind at ease. But it merely coaxes her back into awareness, the drag of his fingers along her scalp eliciting the flutter of her lashes.

"Castle," she sighs, staring up at him in the darkness, looking so beautiful, so utterly miserable at the same time.

"I know, love," he whispers, grazing his thumb to the dark circles beneath her eyes.

"Time's it?" she murmurs, blinking away the gritty remains of sleep and glancing to the window. The snow against the black of the sky, the shimmer of the city, still illuminates the night outside.

He checks the clock on his side of the bed. "Almost four."

She groans under her breath, stubbornly attempts to sit up before he has to intervene and hook his hands beneath her arms, ease her into a reclining position against the pillows.

"I need to move," she rasps, wincing as she tries to shift.

"Okay, hold on," he complies before she takes matters into her own hands, getting out of bed to circle around to her side. "We can stand for a bit."

"Can we go outside?"

He pauses, half bent over the mattress, wondering if she's starting to become delirious from the lack of sleep. "Outside?"

"Castle, I've been cooped up in a hospital bed for over a week, I'll be spending most of my time inside for the next _month_. I want to get out," she reasons, staring up at him with eyes he can't say no to. Fierce and aching and desperate. "What better time than three in the morning?"

She has a point, but the idea of taking her out at night, when there are less people around, more opportunities for vulnerability… Smith's words ring like warning bells through his mind. She may be safe, but he doesn't trust whatever deal is between these men, whether Kate unknowingly upholds her end of not.

He won't chance it, not while she's currently as fragile as a baby bird.

"Okay," Castle concedes, gingerly drawing the covers back from her legs. "But I've got an idea."

* * *

Kate leans on him in the elevator, unsure where they're going, too tired to care. The restlessness thrums likes electricity through her veins, colliding with the beast of agony that lives in her ribcage, wreaking havoc on her sternum. Sleep has become a pointless endeavor and she longs for the cold kiss of air on her cheeks, the sight of the city covered in snow.

She tends to dread the winter, the memories that roll in with the chill and wrap around her with the wind, but after lying near death in its hands, she longs for the reminder the bitter cold can offer. How it makes her feel alive.

The lift stops, dinging its arrival, and Castle shifts towards her, unfurling the blanket he tucked under his arm and brought with him as they snuck out of the loft. He drapes it around her shoulders, over her coat, and she lets the tug of his hands draw her into his chest.

"Are we on the roof?" she murmurs before the doors can slide open.

"Maybe," he muses, but when the doors part, she knows her guess is right.

What she didn't expect was for the roof to be aglow, lit up by Christmas lights that hang above the building's perimeter.

"Wow," she hums, admiring the glitter of gold illuminating the rooftop, sparkling across patio furniture and Christmas trees positioned in each of the four corners, gleaming with their own lights and decorations and light layers of snow. "Do you do this every year?"

"Yeah," he grins, hooking an arm around her waist and waiting for her tentative nod of approval to step off the elevator. "I own this building, so when Alexis was little, I would hire a crew to decorate the halls, the lobby, the roof. We used to come hang out up here all the time. We still do sometimes, but not so much now in the winter."

"It's perfect," she admits, letting him guide her in a slow shuffle across the rooftop. They stop once they reach the opposite side and she feels her breath catch with wonder at the display of the city beyond. "I've never seen it during Christmas like this, from up high."

It almost looks like a winter wonderland made true - the snow dusted buildings, the shimmer of lights in reds, greens, and golds sparkling as far as the eye can see, the occasional hum of a Christmas carol coming from somewhere down below.

"I forgot how beautiful it can be."

"The city?" he murmurs, easing from her side to stand at her back, allowing her to find rest against his chest. Thoughtful man.

"No." Kate sighs and feels the heat of his body seep through the layers of her clothes to permeate her skin, warmth wrapping like a ribbon around her spine. "Christmas."

"I'm sorry." His arms come ever so loosely around her waist, just barely skating the incision wound at her side. But it feels nice, that same pleasant warmth lacing around her stomach, soothing the constant searing in her side to a low simmer. "I'm sorry it turned into something painful for you."

"It'll always be bittersweet," she concedes, lifting one of her arms to drape her hand across the fold of his fingers on her stomach. "Painful, but with a new purpose. Between working my shifts at the Twelfth and… well, being here with you, it isn't all so bad anymore."

The touch of his lips, soft and barely discernible, to the top of her head is his response.

"I'm glad," he adds, brushing his thumb just once over her abdomen, but it has her muscles jumping to attention, sending a rippling reaction through her wounds. She grunts, instinctively clutching his fingers. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Castle whispers hastily, unlacing his fingers to drop his hands from her waist, but she presses her palm against his knuckles.

"No, it's okay. Just don't move yet. Hurts - hurts too much," she confesses, hating it, but the honesty earns her the reluctant reward of him remaining.

She grits her teeth, needing a distraction from the turmoil impeding her body, her mind. She doesn't know what she wants from him, doesn't understand the strong sense of urgency that wells up in her chest every time he's around. Doesn't understand why she needs him so badly. It feels hypocritical, cruel even, to ask for so much when she can give so little, when the bare minimum is apparently all she's been willing to give from the start.

She wants to go back to the start.

"Will you tell me about the night we met?"

He inhales, the exhale expanding the broad wall of his chest at her back.

"You sure you don't want to just let it come back on its own?"

She rolls her eyes even though he can't see her face. "If you're so sure my memories will come back, what's the harm in telling me?"

"It's only been a week and a half," he reasons, grumbling something about impatience that she doesn't care to catch.

"Yeah, and I'm sick of being totally clueless. Just - give me something." She doesn't mean to sound so desperate, so pleading, but she's just so tired of being in the dark, of wondering about him, about what they were, and why. "Or if you don't want to tell me about us, tell me about you," she compromises, feeling him perk with curiosity at her back.

"Me?" he asks, as if it's such a foreign concept. Was she never as inquisitive about his life, eager for his story, as he seemingly always was for hers?

"Yeah, tell me about you, Rick," she insists, realizing just how badly she needs to know, how much she wants to. "Give me your story."

"It's not nearly as interesting," he tries to preface, but she simply decides to prove him wrong, show him just how patient she can be, and waits him out. "Fine," he huffs, causing her lips to quirk with victory.

Kate relaxes further into him, sighing when the added support of his knee eases between hers, allows her to recline deeper into his body. Finally comfortable.

* * *

She coaxes him into telling her more about his life than he's ever revealed to anyone before, including her. He talks about his childhood, his missing father and traveling actress of a mother, the years he spent practically raising himself, the secret he's kept so long about a gruesome discovery in the woods tumbling out of his mouth like a man in confessional. Only Kate holds more power over him than any priest, collecting his sins without uttering a word.

"I still wonder if it's a dream sometimes," he admits, unconsciously circling his thumb round and round over the middle of her stomach, just shy of skirting her navel.

"You'd know if it was a dream," Kate replies grimly.

"It's too late now anyway," he mumbles, shaking his head at himself. What's wrong with him? Why the hell would he tell her this? Especially now of all times?

"Never too late. We can always look into it," she murmurs, clutching at his hands with one of hers. "After… after this."

He wonders what she envisions 'after' looking like for them. He wonders, if her memories really do return, if he reclaims his rightful place inside her mind, will 'after' include him at all?

 _You know what we are, Castle? We are over._

Kate shivers and turns her head towards him, the cold of her nose grazing his neck, eliciting a shiver of his own.

"Kate, you're going to freeze out here," he whispers, shifting to adjust his arm around her waist so that they can walk. "The last thing you need is a cold on top of everything-"

"Wait, just a couple more minutes," she bargains, but her words are starting to drag, exhaustion catching up to claim her. "Tell me a little more."

He purses his lips, hates how easily she makes him give in. But just a few more minutes, just a few more minutes of letting the snow collect on both their shoulders, tangling in the waves of her hair, and leaving the exposed flesh of their faces to turn to ice.

"That's when I started writing. Not seriously, not for any other purpose other than to get that story, that memory, out of me," he continues. Her head tilts backwards to rest the base of her skull at the juncture between his neck and shoulder, her cheek at his throat, frigid but keeping him warm. "I was in college when I first got published, but I really didn't become successful until Derrick Storm."

"Why does that name feel so familiar?" she questions, the frustration evident in the question he believes was meant for herself.

He tries to answer anyway. "It's all over my office, I'm sure you've just-"

"No, it's the same feeling I get every time I'm around you," she explains impatiently. "So familiar, but nothing beyond that, like I can't put my finger on _why_."

"Maybe you read the series," he points out, doing his best not too linger on the empathy overflowing in his chest, how badly it would destroy him to be in her position, to be clawing at memories of her that he knows are there, but unable to unearth them no matter how deep he digs. "I've seen them in your apartment before."

"Maybe," she concedes, deflating further into him. "Either way, just proves you were always a fan," he teases, nudging his cheek against hers. "I've been with you for years it seems."

He feels her cheek tremble, battling the smile wanting to break free, biting it back and swallowing it down. "Or maybe I just bought all those books of yours in a garage sale or something."

"Oh, that's low," he scoffs. "My books would never end up in a garage sale."

"Maybe not the ones based on me," she muses and his lips part in pure delight acting under the guise of offense.

She's insulting him and he's never been so thrilled by it.

"Pretty cocky, Beckett."

"Mm, true. With a character named Nikki Heat," she says with disdain. "I could easily see that getting tossed out."

"Excuse you, Nikki Heat is the best character I've ever written," he defends, flexing his fingers to fit between the set of hers resting above.

She chuckles, disbelieving from the sounds of it. "How? Derrick Storm is the one who made you famous. Didn't you just start writing Nikki?"

"Derrick was fun, he was the character I wished I was," Rick admits. "And don't get me wrong, I'll always cherish the Storm series and the role it played in my life, but Nikki…" The rush of his own memories, vivid and clear and shining bright, flare in his mind, intensified by the reality of having her standing within the circle of his arms now. "When you walked into my book party that first night, you changed everything. I'd just killed off Storm and I thought I'd killed off my writing career with him. But you were like… revival."

"I wish I remembered it," she rasps, turning her head again, burying that freezing nose in his warm cheek. It makes him yearn, the intimacy of it all; it makes him ache, how it comes so easily now, when she can't remember him. "I want to remember what it felt like, if I knew like you did."

"Knew what?" he asks, but the question elicits the pin of her lip between her teeth.

Kate sighs and presses their hands to her good side. "If I knew what you would be to me, if I - wanted you like you wanted me." The oxygen rushes from his chest, fails to return for a long moment. "Breathe, Castle."

"I am," he gets out, filling his lungs and clearing his throat. "I - well, I doubt it was the same. You wanted me for my body, I'm sure-"

"Castle," she grouses, scoring one of his knuckles with her thumbnails.

"I doubt that ever changed," he muses, hissing when she pins him again. "But I don't - I really don't know how you felt before… before-"

"Before I lost you," she finishes, pursing her lips with frustration he knows well.

"We fought the night before."

"Why?" He slips a hand from beneath hers to run it through his hair and she rotates in his arms, forces him to meet the interrogation in her gaze. She'll get her answers out of him, she'll get it all out of him without even having to try very hard. "Just tell me why we fought."

"We need to go inside, Kate."

"No, Castle, you can't just-"

"I will tell you," he begins to placate, slowly rubbing his hands up and down her arms. "Once we are inside. I was serious about you getting sick."

She scrutinizes him with the pierce of her glare, but as if to cede to his point, her body is wracked by a harsh shudder that has her bowing forward, clutching the lapels of his coat.

She curses into his collar. "Fine, get me inside."

* * *

It's as if she's convinced herself that returning to bed will resurrect the dull roar of pain consuming her torso into a full-fledged rampage again and he doesn't have the energy to argue. They've been up all night and he doesn't regret the time spent with her, this pleasant new venture into open communication they've begun to explore, but the sun will be cresting along the horizon soon and he knows they're both drained.

He lays Kate down on the couch, kneeling in front of her to carefully extract her arms from the bundles of fabric he enveloped her in before he took her to the roof.

"Tell me why we fought," she picks up, so damn adamant he has to groan.

"You just never let go," he mutters, scrubbing at his jaw, the unshaven layer of stubble accumulating there.

It's what makes her extraordinary, he reminds himself. It's one of the things that made him fall in love with her.

One of the things that drives him crazy.

"Your mother's case," he finally relents, dropping her snow dampened coat on the floor, reaching for her shoes next. "You were… you wouldn't let that go either. We were up against professional killers, the people who took out Montgomery. I tried to get you to walk away." He shakes his head, feeling foolish that he ever thought he could accomplish that. "To just see that your life is worth more than her death."

He pushes aside Alexis's soft boots with fur lining that he stole from the front closet on their way out the door. Her feet are like ice, frozen even through the thick fabric of her socks.

"I accused you of hiding in it, needing it because you wouldn't know who you were without it."

She sucks in a breath and he closes his fingers around one of her ankles, brushes his thumb to the protruding bone, just as chilled as the rest of her.

"I said you do the same thing in relationships."

"Damn, Castle," she mumbles, but her bottom lip is falling victim to her teeth again. "Bold."

"Yeah, bold enough to get me kicked out," he chuckles, selfishly grateful for the lack of anger the mention of this argument evokes, grateful _that_ isn't the thing to trigger her memories. He would never wish to pick and choose her memories, but he doesn't necessarily look forward to the recollection of that fight returning to her, wishes he could forget it himself. "You said I didn't know you, that I never really did… I told you that you deserve to be happy, but - but I think you're afraid."

"What did I say?" she whispers, but her eyes flutter shut, anticipating the answer.

Castle sighs, rests his hands atop her knees, dropping his gaze to the curl of his palms at her patellas. "You told me we were over."

"Rick." Her fingers slide tentative and cold over his, her slim digits sweeping over the knuckles at her kneecaps.

"So yeah," he sighs. "Maybe you would have lost me anyway, or I would have lost you."

Her hand clenches over his and he glances back up to see her staring down at him with a squared jaw and a flicker of indignation suddenly ablaze in her features.

Shit, maybe she's managed to remember how much she hates him after all.

"That's bullshit, you never would have given me up," she argues, quiet but so fierce in her conviction, her belief in the statement. Even though she has no idea how truly difficult, complicated, and so damn stubborn she can be.

"Maybe I would try to do what you wanted for once," he challenges, drawing his hand out from underneath hers, the anger bubbling in his chest irrational and unfair. Especially now, towards a woman who's inflicted none of it upon him, who's had nothing to do with any of it. "Maybe I'd finally leave you alone."

"Cut the crap, Rick," she counters without missing a beat. "You told me yourself, you can't stay away from me. And I obviously don't want you to."

His brow rises, his heart stuttering for a handful of beats and cooling the building irritation in his chest, but she merely rolls her eyes at him.

"Do you think if I really wanted you gone, you'd still be around? I know myself and I'm pretty sure I haven't lost the will to fight for what I want."

"Oh no," he mutters, rubbing at the throbbing spot between his brows. "You definitely have not."

"If I truly wanted you out of my life every time we fought, you wouldn't be here with me right now," she says with all the confidence he wishes he could muster. But also with the contradiction of fear alive and wild in her eyes.

Even like this, with not one memory of them intact, he terrifies her, doesn't he? Because he would never be a nowhere relationship she could use to hide in like the others. He would never be a distraction she could bury herself in for a little while, while it's convenient, only to discard him later.

No, even this past version of Kate Beckett who is so desperately searching for her present knows her own habits and knows he would be immune to them.

He could ruin her, just like she could ruin him. More so than she already has.

He swallows hard. "You do tend to sleep with a gun, probably could get rid of me whenever you wanted."

Her lips form a smile, but it's weak. He could chalk it up to exhaustion, it wouldn't be a lie, but there's too much anguish that can't be accounted for with lack of sleep. Castle raises from his position on the floor to lean forward, touch his lips to her forehead.

"You're right," he confesses quietly, gaining the upwards tilt of her chin, the graze of her nose to his jaw. "I never could have given you up, even if I wanted to."

"I'm don't doubt it's mutual," she mumbles, the heat of her breath blooming across his throat. "I think I lied, when I said you didn't know me? Feels like you've got me pretty well figured out."

"Mm," he hums noncommittally. "Not sure if that's possible. Still a mystery I'm never going to solve."

She's frowning when he pulls away, but her gaze is drifting towards the window before he can ask, focused on the breach of daybreak through the night sky.

"Rick," she sighs, the streaks of the sunrise spilling into his office, leaking across the floor to reach them. It's beautiful, drenching her in drops of gold as she reaches for his hands and allows him to draw her up from the sofa. "Let's go to bed."


	9. Chapter 9

Kate spends the day before Christmas Eve in doctor's offices, meeting her physical therapist first, constructing a schedule she'll need to carry on for the next two months, before being introduced to the one who will pick apart her brain, influence her career.

She already knows she can get past the hurdles of her injury, has no qualms about putting in the effort and agony to regain her position at the Twelfth once she's actually able. It's the psychological aspect she isn't looking forward to.

Her dad is the one to accompany her to both consultations, taking notes as her physical therapist, Roger, goes over the plan for her recovery process, exercises she'd be doing at home and dietary tips to speed up the healing process. But for her first appointment with Dr. Carter Burke, her father remains in the waiting room while she sits alone in Burke's office.

"Thank you for taking the time to walk me through the past few weeks and what they've been like for you, Kate," Burke says after she's managed to recount a summary of the days that followed her shooting, the pieces of her past that were necessary to explain. "The loss of your memory sounds like it's been a devastating, yet an almost... interesting ordeal."

"You could say that," Kate mutters, curled into the corner of the cushy sofa just a few feet across from his. A smart way to seduce patients into a false sense of security, she notes, comfort. "It's been more frustrating than anything."

"What I find the most confounding is how your lack of memory only seems to influence a single relationship in your life," the doctor assesses with his soothing voice and unnerving patience. "Your relationship with Mr. Castle."

His eyes are dark like onyx, his features relaxed and revealing not even a hint of his thoughts. He looks serene, peaceful, and she resents him for it, envies it.

She hasn't felt anything close to serenity since she was nineteen.

"The doctors assume it's because he was with me when I was shot," she shrugs, refraining from brushing her knuckles to her gunshot wound. It always tends to flare up as if on cue when mentioned. "That he was too close to it all, that any memories associated with him would be too… painful."

Burke is silent for a moment, his gaze remaining stoic, solemn, and eerily calm. It's both too intense and exactly what she would want in a therapist.

"It makes sense," he concedes, but she can already hear the impending 'but' at the end of his sentence. "What I find interesting is that your mind has little trouble recalling other associates and details related to your shooting, your mother's case. You recalled, for instance, your father, your colleagues who were just as deeply involved in the recent events, even Mr. Castle's mother and daughter, but not Castle himself."

"I don't know," is all she can say in response, all she has left to say. "I keep expecting him to come back like everyone else, but he's still a blank in my mind."

"Even in memories where he was actually present in the scenario, like the death of your captain."

Kate doesn't reply to that, aware of how careful she has to be when it comes to Montgomery. He died a hero and that's all anyone outside of the immediate family is allowed to know. Because yeah, she remembers even that conversation, knows Castle was a part of it, but can only manage to see the faces of Ryan and Esposito when she reflects back upon it.

"May I offer a theory?" Burke asks and even though part of her wants to refuse, shake her head and hobble out of the room, she nods in response. "I realize this is only our first session, but from what you have divulged to me in the last hour, Mr. Castle seems to be an important part of your life, both in the past and present time."

"He is," she confirms, knotting her hands together in her lap. "I know I can't remember what it was like with him before, I don't have the memories, but I can… feel them. I can feel everything so clearly when I'm with him."

Burke studies her for another long moment, but he looks as if he already has her figured out.

"Kate," he murmurs, leaning forward in his seat. "Is it safe to say that Castle might be _the_ most important person in your life, even before you were shot?"

Her face warms, chest fluttering with the warning sensation of panic.

"If that's true, shouldn't he have been the first person I remembered?" she counters, mustering up the frustration to bury anything else trying to rise to the surface.

"Not necessarily," Burke replies, folding his hands into a bridge between his knees. "On the contrary, my theory is that his importance in your life is the reason your brain is trying to protect you, your heart, from remembering."

"That makes no sense," Kate argues, her brow creasing.

It doesn't… does it?

"It isn't so hard to recognize now, but before, with another man in the picture, with your mother's case on the line, with the knowledge that you and Castle were often toeing the line of more than friendship… I could see how it may be more difficult to come to terms with just how vital of a role he plays in your life, just how deeply you cared for him."

Kate swallows hard, not understanding the burn in the back of her throat or behind her eyes.

"He loves me," she murmurs, shutting her eyes and seeing his, bright and blue and staring back at her, that lopsided smile that hooks in her heart and reels it into his gentle hands. "I felt it when I first woke up, his daughter confirmed it. He… he confirms it every day."

"Does that scare you?" Burke asks, his voice equally quiet. She didn't realize she'd begun to whisper.

"Yeah," she admits, sucking in a shallow breath. "I don't have to remember to know it always has. The idea of it, the risk."

"The risk of losing him like you lost your mother?"

Her eyes flash back to him, but Burke doesn't look pleased by his breakthrough, nor does he seem pitying or sympathetic. Just understanding, solemn.

"Castle told me himself that I put up a wall. It's been there since the night that detective showed up at our door, told us she was gone." Her gunshot wound pulses. "I never wanted to feel that, anything close to it, again."

"And what do you feel now?"

"Like I almost died." Her breathing threatens to hitch and she forces it to remain steady, forces the rest of the words out. "I think I still want the same things that I did back then, just not in the same way, the same order."

Burke nods. "I'm under no illusions that you won't be able to do your job again when the time comes, that passing your psych eval will be a small hurdle for you to jump, but if you agree, I would like to keep seeing you."

Kate gnaws on her lip for a moment before remembering she's sitting in front of a psychologist whose own job it is to analyze her.

"I'll think about it."

"I'll accept that," Burke grants, but he tilts his head at her in intrigue rather than telling her she's free to go. "I would like to ask, though, if you're able to remember, do you think it would be in your best interest to retain this relationship with Castle?"

"I don't remember much," she begins, casting her gaze to the frosted glass of his office window. "Not about him, and maybe it's all too soon, horrible timing with Christmas, my mom's case, my shooting still open…" Kate sighs, stares down at her knees. "But even if my memories of Castle never come back, I know it's already too late."

For the first time, Doctor Burke appears at least mildly confused. "Too late?"

"Yeah." She breathes through the arrhythmia of her heart, the trip and acceleration the confession causes it to endure. "I love him too."

* * *

He's been staring at the blank screen of his computer for over an hour. Christmas is usually a beneficial time for his writing, the natural lift of his spirits always contributing positively to his productivity. But Kate's been gone for the majority of the day and he hasn't been able to think about much else.

Of course he offered to accompany her to her appointments, but she admitted she preferred her dad's presence for this part of her recovery. He understands, he really does, but it doesn't stop him from worrying about her. But if there's anyone he trusts when it comes to Kate's well-being and best interests, it's Jim Beckett.

Rick eases his laptop closed, curls his fingers around the remote atop his desk instead. The television screen tucked into the shelves of his books comes to life, the photograph he sneaked of her on his phone just months that now feel like lifetimes ago smiling back at him.

He hasn't heard from Smith again, hasn't discussed the phone call since that single instance with his mother. He's considered contacting Ryan and Esposito, but he knows they're dealing with the strict new captain who's been overseeing the Twelfth since Montgomery's death, who will more than likely oversee it for years to come.

Judging from what the boys have relayed to him over text messages, he's guessing that Kate isn't going to be a fan of 'Iron Gates'.

He rises from his desk to approach the screen, tapping the skin of Kate's cheek, the web of information expands from her picture, a network of threads just like the one that surrounds her mother in the shutters of her windows at home.

The 'WHO HIRED THE SNIPER' typed out just below her photo glares back at him. Six of the eight people on the board are deceased, Kate and Joe Pulgatti the only ones left alive within this conspiracy that has grown so much bigger than he ever would have fathomed.

"You woke the dragon," Gary McCallister warned them after John Raglan's was shot right in front of them. The day he thought the other man's blood splattered on Kate's shirt, blooming across her chest, was her own. Rather than foreshadowing for the months to follow.

"What the hell is this?"

Castle jerks at the whisper of Alexis's voice in the doorway, spinning on his heel to find his daughter staring past him in horror.

"You can't do this."

"Alexis-"

" _No_ ," she hisses, storming into his office, dropping a roll of candy cane colored wrapping paper in the doorway. "You're the one who told me she makes you happy, you're the one who loves her so much, and this is what you're doing to her?"

"I'm trying to stop her from doing it herself," he murmurs, his voice pacifying and calm, but it only serves to make Alexis even angrier, her gaze as fiery as her hair.

"Dad, she's not even _thinking_ about the case right now," Alexis spits out, shaking her head incredulously. "For once, she's thinking about _more_ and you're doing the opposite."

Castle's brow falls into a furrow. "What are you talking about? What exactly did she say to you that night?"

"It doesn't matter," she answers without missing a beat. "What are you even trying to do? Solve this on your own?"

"No, I just - I received a phone call, a friend of Montgomery's telling me that the only way to keep Beckett safe, to keep her alive, was to keep her away from the case. So I'm-"

"What? She's not allowed to dig but you are?" Alexis challenges, glancing back to the lit up murder board and swallowing hard. "You don't think what you're doing might be just as dangerous?"

"It's not dangerous if I'm careful. If I were to tell Kate, she'd run at this blind again, get herself killed this time, but if I can steer her away from looking into it long enough, then I can gather enough information to actually do something when the time comes," Castle attempts to explain, but under his daughter's scrutiny, his reasoning suddenly sounds weak. "Look, it's really important you don't say anything, all right? Especially to Beckett."

"You act like this is all about her, but you were standing right next to her. You could have been shot! Hell, I could have been shot! And now you're opening this - this pandora's box all over again and without even a good reason."

He rubs at his temples, a headache that's been building all day rumbling through his skull.

"Alexis, I can't... I can't have this conversation with you."

"Then have it with me."

Both Rick and Alexis go silent, gazes flying to the office entryway, where Kate and Jim Beckett stand.

Kate eases out of her father's supportive grasp, squeezing his arm before shuffling towards Rick with the disapproval blazing in her eyes.

"Have that conversation with me, Rick," she states, squaring her jaw and glaring up at him through the simmering fury in her gaze. "Now."

* * *

Alexis makes herself scarce, Kate's dad doing the same, casting one last pained look at the murder board before mentioning something about retreating to the kitchen, closing the door behind him.

Castle sucks in a deep breath. "Kate-"

"What the hell are you doing?" she whispers, razor blades splicing through her chest, shredding through her heart.

"How much did you hear?" he has the audacity to ask and it makes her scar burn brighter, her heart like a furnace fueled by his every word.

"Enough. Enough to know you've been lying to me," she rasps, needing the support of his desk at her side or the arm of the couch at her back, but unwilling to waver from her indignant stance in front of him. "This person who called you… they told you to distract me? To play me like some pawn so that I wouldn't investigate my mother's murder?"

"Kate, it wasn't-"

"And you agreed?" she chokes out, taking a trembling step backwards when he comes towards her. Fuck, he lied to her, he's _been_ lying to her, and it hurts.

"I - I was just trying to keep you safe," he reasons, so helplessly it makes her heart ache worse. "Just like Montgomery was trying to."

"Don't bring him into this," she snaps, but he shakes his head, lifts his hands in supplication.

"Listen to me, before he went into that hangar, he sent a package to someone, the man who called me," he explains, but it's only causing every form of anguish wracking her frame to increase, accumulate. "It contained information damaging to the person behind all of this. But the package didn't arrive until after you'd been shot. Montgomery's friend…struck a deal with them. If they left you alone, the package and the information inside would never see the light of day. But they made one condition, you had to back off."

"And that's where you come in," she breathes, closing her eyes and leaning back until her spine rests against the wall. Her hands are shaking at her sides, balled into fists with her nails cutting into her palms. "You're a part of it."

"No," he protests, his voice rising just slightly, sharply, moving closer to her. "I was only trying to find a way to protect you, nothing else-"

"I don't need your protection," she growls, her eyes flaring open. "I needed you to be honest with me. I needed you to just - to be _you_. To just be the man who loves me."

Her mouth goes dry the moment the words leave it.

Castle freezes in the middle of the room, steps away and staring at her with wide eyes, a darkened blue, troubled and tugging at the frown lines around his lips.

"You remembered?"

"Remembered?" she echoes, the realization sinking in a second too late. "You've said it before?"

He blinks before he buries his face in his hands. "It's not - it doesn't matter. I don't know how to be that man," he expels, dropping his hands at his sides, palms up and exasperated as if he just doesn't know what to do with her anymore. "I've tried for a while now, Kate, and it's never enough."

"Then just stop," she snaps, resisting the urge to beg him to just stop. Both her brain and her heart were already left in enough turmoil from therapy, she can't take this too. "Stop trying and just be you. I can't account for who I was when I knew you, when I remembered, but all I know now is that I just want you," she confesses, so very tired of trying to convince herself otherwise.

But he looks so confused in response, as if he can't possibly understand. She has to sigh, ease her broken body from the wall, and shuffle the couple of steps forward to reach him.

"I'm sorry for how I may have made you feel in the past, I'm sorry I was never open or easy to understand," she whispers, resting her hands on his waist, too worn to place them at his chest like she wants. "I'm sorry that this case has been my life for the last twelve years, that I'll never let it go. Maybe… maybe I'm just too damaged-"

"No," he argues, adamant and cupping her shoulders in his palms, the confusion dissipating beneath the strength of his certainty. "Kate, the way you've sought answers for your mother all this time, the way you never give up, never back down… that alone proves just how much you want to be whole."

"But that can't be the only thing to complete me, the only thing I want in life. There was something else I was working towards, another goal."

"I could see you being Captain of the Twelfth one day," he nods along. "Going even higher if you wanted to."

"Castle," she sighs, shaking her head, because he may no longer be confused, but he still isn't understanding her.

"Kate, we're going to find the sons of bitches who killed your mother. We're going to get the Dragon, everyone involved, and there will be justice, and then you can move onto every other dream you've had that deserves to be fulfilled."

"I want justice for my mother, that will never change," she affirms, biting her lip to distract herself from the stretch of her scars as she lifts her hands to lay against his chest. "But I have other dreams right now that matter more."

Rick gingerly brushes his hand to her cheek, fingertips dusting along the slash of her bone before allowing his palm to drape along her skin. It's the first time he's touched her since this argument began.

"I'll delete the board if it's what you want," he murmurs, tracing the shell of her ear with his thumb. "I'll stay away from the case for as long as you want, whether that's forever or until you decide you want to pursue it again."

The relief floods her chest, has her swaying into the waiting wall of his body. "I just want you. Just let me have that."

"Kate," he breathes, pressing his lips to her forehead. "You don't have to ask, never have to ask."

She lets her hands slide from his chest, back to his waist to clutch at the fabric of his shirt.

"You have me, love. You've always had me."


	10. Chapter 10

Jim Beckett stays for dinner, studying Rick throughout the meal. He's leaving afterwards for a week at his cabin, Rick learns, but as his gaze flicks between the two of them, Kate propped up on the couch with her meal in the form of a smoothie while Castle pushes his food around on his plate, he wonders if her father is reconsidering leaving at all.

It's Kate's reassurances, he's sure, that soothe her dad's worry, murmured words between the two of them that Castle doesn't hear but seem to put the older Beckett somewhat at ease.

More at ease than when he walked in to see his daughter's face in the middle of a murder board at least.

After he's pressed a kiss to her head, emphasized that he'll only be a phone call away, and leaves her with an 'I love you', Jim meets Castle's gaze, nods towards the door.

"We've already had this conversation before, Rick," Jim tells him under his breath. "Her life is worth more than her mother's death. I was betting that you would be the person to convince her of that. Don't give me reason to doubt it."

"No sir," Castle promises, accepting the hand Jim holds out to him.

"And if anything happens, anything at all, you call me. I have reception out there and I can be back immediately," her dad reminds him, squeezing Rick's hand.

Castle nods. "Will do."

"Have a Merry Christmas, Rick," Jim sighs, finally offering him that tired smile Castle's come to see as a comfort. "You deserve it."

"So do you," he says automatically, because he does. But he has a feeling Jim Beckett stopped believing he deserved the good things in life years ago.

"He's not mad at you, you know," Kate says once her father is gone.

"Mm, I'd beg to differ," Rick chuckles, strolling through the foyer and into the living room where she sits on the sofa, the lights of the tree reflecting in her eyes.

There are hoards of presents underneath it, most for Alexis, a few for his mother, some for him, and a couple for the woman on his couch. He's grateful that he did most of his shopping before her shooting; it would have been the last thing on his mind otherwise and Christmas would have felt a little less magical for him without the joy of showering his family with gifts.

He's always has something small for Kate every year even though he tends to not see her during the week that Christmas falls, showing up in the new year with a tin of cookies or some of his and Alexis's homemade peppermint bark. This year, he steered away from the idea of baked goods, making something different for her. Something inexpensive and minimal, something he knew she wouldn't complain about him spending money on. But that was before her shooting.

Since then, he's managed to come up with a few more gift ideas that won't be too overwhelming for the woman he loves who doesn't remember him, but will still give her something to open on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning.

"You just shook him up," she murmurs, flicking her gaze to the stairs, drawing his attention away from the tree. "Maybe not just him."

Castle sighs. "I shook up the whole household, it seems."

Alexis was upstairs when Castle and Beckett emerged from his office. She came back down for dinner, offering a small smile to Kate and sharing a knowing look with Jim Beckett, but she didn't speak to Castle for the half hour she spent pushing her food around on her plate. She retreated to her room as soon she got the opportunity and he doesn't expect her to come back down by her own volition.

"Go talk to her, Castle." He glances back to Kate, watching him with too much empathy in her eyes. He hasn't earned it, he knows that. He's aware that it'll take longer than a couple of hours to make up for going behind her back where her mother's case is concerned. But she isn't holding it against him now. "Tomorrow's Christmas Eve and I can tell how much you guys love this time of year. Don't let this ruin that."

"I plan to talk to her," Rick nods, stepping up to stand in front of her and offering up his hands. "But let's get you to bed first."

"I'm not-"

"Yes, you are," he quiets her protest before it can begin. "You barely got any sleep last night and you've been out all day, fitting in multiple therapy appointments-"

"Two," she corrects. "It was only two and they were both just consultations."

"My point is that you had a very long and tiring day and on top of it, you had to come home to me ready and waiting to make it even harder."

Kate bites her lip. "Home?"

"Yeah, you-" Oh… when is he going to stop slipping up with her? Especially right in front of her? "I didn't mean to imply that this was… I know you have your apartment, I just-"

"I know what you meant," she chuckles, sucking in a breath before lifting forward and accepting the hands held out to her. "But Rick?"

He draws her up with practiced ease, lacing an arm around her waist to keep her movements as steady and smooth as possible. "Yeah?"

"Home's not always about location," she murmurs, not pausing in her shuffle to the bedroom, not even when he nearly stumbles in his haste to steal a glance at her face. But she's pointedly not looking at him. It's the most confounding part of it all, he thinks, how she can be so brave now, but still appear just as cautious, just as afraid as making one wrong move, as he is.

"You're right," he nods as they pass the massive tower of the Christmas tree and make their way through his office. "By the way, like you mentioned, tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I figured I'd run through the plan with you."

Her step stutters a little. "The plan?"

"Just our usual Christmas Eve traditions," he explains, tightening his arm ever so slightly around her waist as they walk through his bedroom entryway. "We start the day off pretty normally, but around noon, we usually go ice skating in the park. Traditions were changing this year anyway since Alexis was going to bring Ashley along, Mother will be teaching her last class of the year and putting on a small performance for the family and friends of her students, and so I figured you and I could do something."

"Something?" she hedges, expelling a sigh of relief once they finally reach the bed. "Castle, do you see how much effort it takes me to get from a couch to a bed?"

"Nothing strenuous. We don't even have to leave the house." He pulls the sheets and comforter back, helps ease her legs up and onto the mattress, and lets her settle her back against a couple of pillows. "We can watch more movies on the couch or bake more Christmas goodies. You can help me wrap the last of the presents I have for Alexis. We can go back up to the roof-"

"None of this is what you usually do this time of year," Kate points out. "You should go ice skating with Alexis like always, or go see your mother's play-"

"Beckett, I am not tagging along with my daughter and her boyfriend, not if I can't bring you. Maybe next year." Ooh, he hopes there's a next year for them. Ice skating with Kate on Christmas Eve sounds like a dream. "And I'm definitely not going to my mother's play."

"Why not?"

"You've never been to one of her plays," is all he has to say.

She leans back into the pillows, snags the blankets with her fingers. "I'll think on it."

"All I ask," he grins, easing back to give her space. "Anything else you need?"

Kate glances to the nightstand, her usual set up of water, a pill bottle, and a sleeve of crackers making up the surface of the bedside table.

"A good book," she frowns, glancing past him to peer into his office. "Do you have something I could borrow?"

An idea pops into his head like a lightbulb flicking on.

"Yeah, let me grab it." Castle trots out of the bedroom, through his study, and back into the living room, spotting one of her gifts sitting below the branches. He snags the red and green wrapped square, brushing his thumb over the shiny gold bow. He jogs back to her with the present in his hands, an excited smile claiming his lips. "Here you go."

Her brow furrows. "What is that?"

"One of your Christmas gifts, but I don't mind if you open this one early," he explains, holding it out to her.

"A gift? Castle, I don't want-"

"It's nothing," he assures her, pushing the present into her hands. "Really, I didn't spend a dime on it."

Kate narrows her gaze on him, not believing a word of it.

"Kate," he wines. "Just open it."

"Fine," she grumbles, dropping the present into her lap. She opens it slowly, tormenting him, slitting her thumbnail along the taped edges of decorative paper until it falls away to reveal the book inside.

The tips of her fingers dust along the bold lettering of his name.

"Is this… Nikki Heat?" she murmurs, studying the infamous cover of _Heat Wave_ with an arch of her brow and curve threatening to form along the corner of her mouth.

"The first in the series," he confirms, surprised to find his hands sweating and his stomach indulging in tiny flips of nerves.

"Is she naked on the cover?" Kate sighs, as if she should have known. "I'm sure this didn't get me made fun of at work."

"Just a little," he admits sheepishly, but she's smirking when she looks up at him. "Look, I know it's a little presumptuous, but give it a chance."

 _Give me a chance._

She wads up the wrapping paper in her fist, lets him toss it in the small trash bin in the corner of the room.

"Go talk to Alexis." She grits her teeth as she shifts in the bed, shaking up the fragile arrangement of her body to relax further into the pillows at her back, and curls her fingers around his book. "I want to get some reading in before I pass out."

* * *

She waits until she can hear the sound of his footsteps upstairs, until she hears the opening of Alexis's door, to actually open the book.

It's unrealistic, silly to even entertain the idea, but the more wishful part of her is hoping this book will provide her with some of that Christmas magic that Castle keeps going on about, that the pages inside will hold the chapter of her life she's currently missing, help give it back to her.

Kate flips through the first few pages, the title page, the table of contents, catching the dedication between her fingers.

 _To the extraordinary KB and all my friends at the 12th._

Extraordinary. It's just like the other word that keeps ringing a bell when he says it, the way 'always' has rolled so rich and warm off his tongue. Just another piece of the puzzle in her mind that doesn't yet have a place to fit.

Kate swallows down her disappointment and turns the page.

 _It was always the same for her when she arrived to meet the body._

* * *

The lamp in his room is still on when he comes back downstairs from talking with Alexis, but the woman in his bed is asleep, his book open across her ribs, her hands cradling it there.

He grins. She fell asleep reading his book.

Castle pads quietly through the bedroom to turn off the lamp, carefully lifting the book from her hands as he does. He grabs a post-it note from his nightstand to mark her place, noticing she's already on chapter nine.

How long was he upstairs with Alexis?

He changes into his pajamas in the dark before he circles back around to his side of the bed, slipping under the sheets as carefully as he can. Doesn't stop Kate from stirring awake.

"Alexis okay?" she mumbles, blinking a few times before her blurry eyes are able to focus on him in the moonlit darkness.

"She's fine," Castle whispers, offering her a tired smile. "We talked through everything and I stayed with her until she fell asleep."

"Good," Kate hums, closes her eyes, and begins to roll onto her side before she winces at the movement, reminding herself that the position still isn't an option.

"Get any reading done?" he murmurs, shifting a little closer to her in the bed, getting comfortable while she's still awake and he's at less risk of disturbing her.

"Enough," she yawns. "S'not that bad."

He huffs, mutters about how mean she is as she grins at him without even opening her eyes. "Go back to sleep."

"Like them so far," she slurs, the smile starting to slip from her lips and her breathing beginning to even out. "Heat and Rook."

"Yeah, they have an interesting dynamic," he muses, gently brushing back her hair.

"Like us," Kate sighs before she can drift away.

Castle lays his head down, watches the gorgeous rise and fall of her chest, the sign of life that he's yet to stop marveling over since he saw her for the first time after she was shot.

"Not quite," he mumbles, thinking fleetingly of all the plans he had for Nikki and Rook, the ones he tried to flush from his brain the day she told him to get out of her apartment and her life. "Almost. Maybe almost."

* * *

When Kate wakes on the morning of Christmas Eve, it's to an empty bed and the sound of the running water beyond the closed bathroom door.

Castle's been innocently sleeping beside her for the past few nights, neither of them ever really acknowledging the fact that they share a bed. Besides, it's just for the sake of her injury, nothing personal. At least that's what she keeps telling herself.

She's become accustomed to waking alone most mornings, her hours of sleep so thrown off that she fluctuates between waking up too early or too late, but today, it's only ten o'clock when she checks the alarm on his nightstand. A pretty normal time for someone to awaken on a holiday morning, right?

It makes her even more disappointed that she managed to miss waking up while he was still there.

Kate stretches her arm across the abandoned space of the mattress, screwing her eyes shut at the daily slice through her sternum that greets her every morning. She breathes through it, lets it pass before she focuses once more on the simple task at hand. The sheets are still warm beneath her palm and she draws her hand back, bends her arm to seal it against her bullet wound, willing the light pressure stabilize her.

Once her vision ceases to blur and the morning ritual of a riot in her chest calms to a dull roar, she digs her heels into the mattress in a practiced move to maneuver herself into a more reclined position against the pillows. Sitting up helps her breathe with less complication and gives her better access to the items on the nightstand.

Grudgingly, she pops one of the painkillers into her mouth, downs it with the glass of water. If she's going to be spending the day with Rick, feeling overwhelmed with Christmas cheer, she should at least prepare herself as much as possible.

Unfortunately, beyond taking her pill, drinking her water, and forcing down a few crackers, she's unable to do much more without his help in the mornings. She's far too stiff after the prolonged period of lying down.

The only thing left on the nightstand is his book. She tugs it from the table and into her lap, opening to the page she left off on and dropping the folded post-it note he must have placed inside for her to the comforter. She managed to cram in almost a hundred pages before her eyelids started to droop, exhaustion taking over. She's loathe to admit just how much she's enjoying his writing, his characters of Nikki Heat and Jameson Rook.

She clocks one more glance to the closed bathroom door, the stream of the shower still resounding audibly through the room, and returns her attention to his book and the unfolding story that he wrote for her.

* * *

He bets too much on the assumption that Kate will still be asleep when he emerges from the shower. He takes his time under the heat of the spray, doesn't rush the process of shaving his face, tightening the wrap of his towel around his waist when he realizes he forgot to grab his clothes to change into.

Castle quietly eases the bathroom door open, prepared to slip out into his bedroom without waking Kate. But as soon as he steps out of the bathroom, he sees that Kate's already wide awake and sitting up in bed, Heat Wave open in her lap, her hands tight and knuckles shining ivory around the hardback, her lips parted and her brow in a troubled crease.

Shit, please tell him she isn't reading the part he thinks she's reading.

"Beckett?"

Her eyes flash up to him, a darkened brown with a halo of heat around her irises. Oh, he's seen that look before, in a dimly lit parking lot seconds before she kissed him for the first time. It intensifies as she notices his state of undress.

"There's a sex scene in the book?" she whispers, lowering the book to her side. "You wrote about us... why didn't you tell me we-"

"Because we didn't," he hisses hastily, his entire face flushing hot. "We never... its fiction."

" _Why_?"

And she looks so damn frustrated.

He blinks. "Why - why what?"

She growls and shoves the covers from her legs, stabbing her bottom lip with her teeth as she swings them over the edge of the bed. "I'm not having this conversation while I'm sitting in your bed."

"Kate, will you just-" But she's already planting a hand to the nightstand, pushing herself to her feet with a pained gasp. He strides forward, prepared to brace his hands at her hips, stabilize her until she can breathe without wincing, but she shakes her head, tries to wave him off. "Beckett-"

"None of this makes sense," she gets out, squeezing her eyes shut and visibly doing her best to refrain from doubling over. He waits for her to breathe in and out a few times, slowly and stretching the damaged remains of her chest until she can open her eyes, straighten her spine. "We really never-"

"No," he groans, scrubbing his hands over his eyes. Why did he let her read that damn book? What was he thinking giving her a book all about her? A 'love letter to Kate Beckett' as Paula so bitterly likes to remind him. Of course with two characters that so closely mimic Kate and himself, their fiery dynamic, she would assume the content inside was more fact than fiction.

Including the well-talked about sex scene on page 105.

Kate's staring up at him with that shocked arousal still prevalent in her gaze. "Did _anything_ ever happen between us?"

"We - we've kissed," he nods, rubbing at the back of his neck. "Just once. And it wasn't… it wasn't real or anything-"

"How can it not be real?" she demands, her brow furrowing deeper.

"Well, we were trying to save Ryan and Esposito and there was this guard, so I figured we needed a distraction-"

"And your bright idea was to kiss me?" she deadpans.

He shrugs, suddenly feeling far too exposed in just the towel around his waist. "It worked."

"And after that?" she presses, watching him reach for the robe draped over the armchair next to his bed.

"What do you mean after? We saved Ryan and Esposito, saw the paramedics, and then everyone went home," he explains, pushing his arms through the robe and tugging it on snugly across his chest, cinching it firmly around his waist. "One of those things we didn't talk about after it happened."

She purses her lips. "Who saw the paramedic? Did one of us get hurt?"

"I - I just hurt my hand," he murmurs, flexing his previously bruised knuckles out of reflex. They rarely flame with that intense ache anymore, practically healed by now, but he doesn't think he'll ever lose the phantom pain of his bones cracking as they connected with Hal Lockwood's face.

Her gaze drifts to the ball of his injured fist. "How?"

"Punched a sniper in the face when he tried to shoot you," he answers as casually as possible, hoping she'll just let it go.

She flicks her attention back to his face, meeting his eyes. "How long ago was this?"

"I don't know," he fibs, pretending to ponder it. "A few months ago."

Kate's gaze slips back to his mouth. "It was too late to go back after that, wasn't it?"

He doesn't even try to pretend he doesn't understand, doesn't ask any questions, can only sigh in agreement.

"Yeah, Kate. For me, it was definitely too late."

He doesn't understand the devastation on her face, lining her features, only that this entire conversation is causing his heart to burn. He doesn't like to remember how it felt to kiss her, how it felt to have her surging up against him, hands in his hair and heart pounding in time with his. How it felt to have her kiss him back.

"Listen, I'm going to get dressed and then-"

"Kiss me again."

His mouth goes dry. She's lifting her eyes to meet his, the initial surprise of reading his book gone but her pupils still thick with lust and sparkling gold.

"Kate," he murmurs, already prepared to back away, to retreat, save her from making a mistake.

"Are we back to being just friends, Rick?" she challenges, squaring her jaw, because oh, he's managed to hurt her with the unspoken rejection, hasn't he? He's managed to make her think he doesn't want her with every fiber of his being. "Would you kiss me if it was _her_ asking you?"

"Stop it," he mutters, but she advances a step, just a breath away and close enough for him to feel the heat radiating off her body. "It's no different. We couldn't come back from that and we wouldn't be able to come back from this either."

"Maybe I don't want to," she counters, bearing down on her long abused bottom lip, the flesh already starting to swell from its time under her teeth. "I already told you what I wanted, Rick. I don't have to remember the past two years to know how I feel about someone."

"How _do_ you feel about me, Beckett?" he decides to press, decides to make her prove it. He cares too much, too much to risk screwing this up. "Since you seem to have already figured out how I feel about you."

Her throat ripples, but she doesn't back down. "How hard is it to understand? I told you that I wanted you, Castle. What do _you_ want?"

His brow hitches close to his hairline. He's just not used to her being so… so blunt, so bold, not when it comes to them. No, when it comes to their relationship, the complications of it, she's usually tight-lipped and ready to run, move right past whatever new life-threatening moment threatens their tenuous balance.

She keeps asking him what they are, what they were before the memory of him was wiped clean from her brain, but he doesn't have the answers. He never did.

But he's always known what he's wanted.

"You." He lifts his hands to her face, cradling her cheeks in his palms, and catching the flare of surprise in her eyes before he leans in. "You think you want me, Kate? You have no idea how much I want you."

And then he shows her.


	11. Chapter 11

The drape of his mouth over hers is quick and unexpected. She taunted him, forced the truth from him with her own, but she wasn't prepared for him to have the courage to actually follow through, to tend to her lips with the reverent press of his, the skim of his tongue to the seam of her mouth, breaching and dragging a mewl from her mouth.

Castle's fingers slide into her hair, the cradle of his palm at her nape, and she finds hers rising to curl in the soft fabric of his robe, tugging to bring him closer, to brace her body against his. She wants to slip her hands past the barrier of thin material, seek warm skin beneath the flat of her palms skating up his sides and around to his back.

He breaks the kiss to touch his lips to the corner of her mouth, her jaw, traveling over heated flesh until he's branding the beat of her pulse, trailing down her throat to nip at her collarbone.

Her abs are quivering, doing everything in their power not to jolt and ripple, heighten her pain level and allow it to rupture past her lips, convince him to stop. She doesn't want him to stop.

"Don't let me hurt you," he murmurs, the vibrations of his voice shuddering through her.

Kate grips him tighter and shakes her head. "You won't."

She's been wearing his button downs to sleep in and he pauses with his nose at her neck to dislodge the first in the row with his fingers, undoing just one more to reveal the angry red knot of the scar between her breasts. She was just able to have the stitches removed the yesterday, just in time for Christmas, and she's grateful now, grateful his first time seeing it won't be with threads of black lacing through her flesh.

He dusts his lips to the spot and she raises one arm to band around his neck, tangling fingers in his hair and burying her gasp in his cheek when he ventures back up the line of her sternum, the column of her throat.

"Richard," his mother's voice rings from just outside his office and Kate stiffens harshly. "Are you up?"

The band of his arm at her waist steadies her, stops her from jerking with surprise at the call of Martha's voice.

"Castle, my shirt," she breathes, hiding her face and the pink flush of her cheeks against his neck.

"It's okay," he soothes, sounding far too calm as he rubs a gentle hand down her spine, coaxing the sway of her body into his. "Just lean against me."

It's easy to find rest within the cove of his body, her galloping heart slowing to a less excruciating pace when it's sealed to the wall of his chest.

"Darling," his mother sing-songs from the office before she pokes her head inside. Kate is unable to see her face, to read Martha's expression, but she does hear the concern in her voice the moment she speaks. "Is Katherine alright?"

"She's fine, Mother," Castle promises, his voice an easy reassurance. "She just tried to get out of bed a little too quickly."

"Oh, poor dear," Martha sighs. "I'm just on my way out for the performance, do either of you need me to pick anything up for dinner before I return later?"

"I think we're good," Rick murmurs, his cheek lifting with a smile against Kate's temple. "But break a leg at the play."

"Thank you, kiddo. And do feel better, Katherine."

Kate gingerly draws her face from the cover of Castle's neck, enough to see his mother, offer her a grateful lift of her lips.

The older woman is shimmering in a red and gold dress, a brilliant emerald necklace around her throat, a matching ring glittering on her finger. It has Kate smiling a little wider.

"Thank you, Martha. You look amazing, by the way."

"Oh, this?" His mother twists, allowing the dress to catch the sunlight seeping through Castle's bedroom windows, the rays glinting off of it and sending dazzling ripples of light across the room. "Thank you, dear. I've been dying for a chance to wear it. But ah, I don't want to be late. See you both tonight!"

Martha waves her goodbyes with both hands and spins on her heel, sauntering out of his room and to the front door. Kate waits until it opens and closes with finality to take a deep breath.

"Well, Christmas Eve morning is definitely off to an interesting start," he mumbles, brushing his lips to her hair. "You okay?"

Kate lifts her head, tilting back far enough to stare up at him. It almost feels like she's cheating, skipping over two years of history while he's stuck wading through their past, sorting through the then and now of who they are, but even if she isn't able to recover her memory, she doesn't want to give this up.

She doesn't want to go back to a version of them that she can't remember, a version of them who left too much unsaid, who apparently only spoke in subtleties and half truths, who only kissed for the sake of a ruse.

Kate unhooks her fingers from their tenuous grip at his waist, snagging them in the lapel of his robe instead. His hand covers hers, warm and reaffirming, the uncertainty she could spot flaring to life in his eyes simmering down again.

"Yeah, Castle," she murmurs, the corner of her mouth twitching up for him. "I'm okay."

* * *

His mind is still reeling.

After his mother's departure, he helps Kate to the bathroom and prepares the shower, leaving her to bathe while he goes to check on Alexis. His daughter is already out in the kitchen, a bowl of cereal and some fruit in front of her at the bar, and a smug grin on her lips.

"What?" he asks, but Alexis only shakes her head.

"Oh, nothing. Gram just left, let me know you and Kate were having _a moment._ "

Castle rolls his eyes, but his heart is still fluttering hard, his lips still tingling with the touch of hers.

"I was just helping her get out of bed."

"Dad," Alexis chuckles, swirling her spoon around in her cereal. "Gram told me she knows what a cover up looks like. She also said you and Kate were both blushing _way_ too hard."

He huffs, that heated blush climbing right back onto his cheeks. "I was not blushing."

"Just like you aren't right now?"

"Eat your cereal, go get ready for your magical day of ice skating with your boyfriend and without your father to supervise."

Alexis's smile grows wider as she hops off the stool, circles around the bar to bound up to him, wrapping her arms around his neck in a quick hug. "I'll miss you guys today."

And oh how his hard leaps at the plural, the possibilities his daughter's approval provides to pop into his head. Maybe he really would get to take Kate ice skating in the park with his daughter next year.

"We'll miss you too. But you'll have fun, Pumpkin. Then you can come home and tell me all about it during Christmas dinner," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to her head and giving her a smile that's genuine as she pulls away.

After Kate was shot, his lips felt like they were destined to reside in a permanent frown, but in these last few days, he's remembered what it feels like to smile so hard his cheeks hurt again.

"Of course," Alexis answers as she draws away and strolls back for her breakfast. "Hey, will you ask Kate something for me?"

"Sure," he replies, curious, maybe a little nervous too.

"I know it's kinda tradition that we get all dressed up for our Christmas Eve dinner. I don't know if Kate has something, so I was thinking… Gram will be done with her play around the same time Ash and I should be done skating, we were talking about grabbing her a dress and then I could help her get ready," Alexis suggests, biting her lip in a habit he knows without doubt has been acquired from the woman currently in his shower. "Only if she wants to though. I don't want her to think there's any pressure-"

"I think that's a great idea, honey," Castle assures her, his heart swelling with it. "I'll run the last part by Kate, let you two surprise her with the dress, if you want, and then shoot you a text."

"Perfect," Alexis grins back at him, her face practically glowing. So much better than the tear-stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes from last night. She catches him staring a little too long, a little too fondly, of course, and softens her smile for him. "Love you, Dad."

"Love you too, baby bird."

Alexis leaves to meet Ashley not long after and Castle returns to the bathroom to aid Kate in safely exiting the shower stall, a task they've performed a handful of times since the day she was released from the hospital, but one that never gets less awkward.

He holds out the same robe he wore earlier for her, slipping it over her shoulders while he pointedly keeps his head turned.

"Thanks, Castle," she murmurs, cinching the oversized robe at her waist and bracing her hands at his forearms as he guides her out of the shower stall.

"Anytime. Want me to comb your hair?"

She's usually too stubborn to let him do it, letting her hair go wild and untamed instead. But today she looks up at him, dripping hair falling around her cheeks and soaking the shoulders of his robe, the corner of her mouth quirking for him.

"I'd like that."

He grabs her usual attire of a button down and sweatpants, leaving the duffel bag that holds the rest of her belongings that resides in his closet inside the bathroom while she changes, and waiting for her to emerge to lead her back to his bed. She perches on the edge of the mattress while Castle arranges himself behind her with a comb.

He only manages to brush through a few tangles, smooth out the length of her hair, before she's swaying on the spot. Castle places the comb down on the bed, runs his fingers through a few times.

"Putting me to sleep," she mumbles, finding his hand at her side and instinctively fitting her fingers through the spaces of his.

"You didn't get much," he reasons, shifting to give her the opportunity use his chest as support for her back.

She takes it, her shoulder blades expanding against his sternum. "I don't want to sleep anymore."

"What if we go out to the couch and we can watch a movie while I get the last of my wrapping done?"

Kate hums, squeezing his hand. He doesn't know what he's going to do if she backs away from this increased level of contact initiated while she was in the hospital, if she stops indulging in the opportunity to touch him whenever she pleases.

"Sounds good."

They migrate to the living room and he sets up Kate on the couch with another protein smoothie and half of a sandwich that she's able to consume a few bites of. They turn on a Christmas movie about Santa and the magic of believing; he wraps two gifts, letting Kate place the bows on top, before she falls asleep curled up in the corner of the sofa.

It's how Alexis and his mother find them when they walk in hours later.

"Dad, you never texted me," Alexis whispers, holding up two large shopping bags. She places them on the floor and begins to dust the snow from her shoulders, shaking it from her hair.

"It's alright, we managed," his mother waves it off, strolling through the room. "My play concluded by lunchtime, Alexis parted ways with Ashley not too long after, and we've been shopping through the Christmas mayhem ever since."

"Well, we had some lunch and did a little Christmas wrapping and movie watching before Kate passed out," Castle defends, explains with a shrug. "She needs the sleep."

"Castle," Kate groans as if on cue. "Why did you let me sleep so long?"

"You don't even know what time it is," Rick huffs from the other end of the couch.

"I can tell it's been too long," she grumbles, shifting from underneath the blanket. "Help me up."

"Yes, help her up because it's time to doll that girl up," Martha announces, clapping her hands together. "I'll begin setting up your bathroom for primping, Richard."

"Wait, what?" Kate murmurs, her brow furrowing as Martha strides past the sofa.

"Well," Alexis chimes in, hanging her coat in the front closet and snagging the shopping bags from the floor. "Dad was supposed to inform you of our plans to help you dress up for Christmas Eve."

"Dress up?" Kate's fully awake now, staring at his daughter with that deer in headlights look he doesn't see quite as often now but knows well from the last two years. "For what?"

"Just for dinner," Castle shrugs, extricating her from the cocoon of blankets and easing her into a sitting position. "Nothing serious, just something we have fun doing every year."

"Grams is usually ready by morning," Alexis informs her. "As you probably saw today. But I still have to go get dressed and then I was going to help you. I thought - well, I was hoping we might have fun with it. I could curl your hair if you want while you do your makeup. Or - or if it hurts to lift your arms I could help with that too. Well, maybe not with the eyeliner, but everything else."

His daughter gives her a shy smile, a hopeful one, one they all know Kate's not going to say no to.

Kate glances warily to the shopping bags in Alexis's hands and sighs, giving in. "Fine."

* * *

Most of the cooking was done while Kate slept, some of it prepared a day or two in advance, so he does the last of it while the girls are holed up in his room, sets the table alone, and is only allowed into his own bedroom to change.

It's dark outside and his stomach is growling by the time Alexis and his mother finally emerge.

"We're all ready," Alexis announces, spinning around in her own plum colored party dress and walking in high heeled shoes that remind him how grown up she's really becoming. "Kate's a little stiff from sitting, so she may need to walk around a bit, but…" Alexis purses her lips with excitement, hooking her arm with her grandmother's to draw them both aside from his view. "It's time, Kate."

It takes a handful of seconds, but then she's walking into the living room in a red dress that has his heart stopping.

She isn't able to show off the outfit like his mother and daughter, with curls and high heels, wearing ballet flats instead of the stilettos he knows she'd prefer. Kate takes careful steps into view, the lace of the dress hugging her curves and drifting down to her knees, her wrists, leaving her legs and shoulders exposed.

"Wow," he whispers, stumbling against a dining chair as he strides forward to meet her, prepared to take his customary position at his side. But he stops before he can reach her, standing in front of her to admire the loose curls of her hair, the light layer of makeup. "You're beautiful."

"Castle," she mumbles, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.

He covers the last of the distance to place his hands on her waist, bracketing her hips in his palms, and releasing a sigh of gratitude when she sways into him. Her fingers curl in his dress shirt, her eyes alight as she looks up at him.

"Best Christmas gift ever," he whispers, drifting in to dust his lips to between her brows.

"Shut up," she huffs, tilting her chin to nudge her nose to his. "It's all thanks to Martha and Alexis."

Rick glances back over his shoulder, catching his mother and daughter watching with intrigue and pride, and maybe a little amusement too.

"Not all," he murmurs, turning back to admire her once more. "You're naturally breathtaking, Kate. Always have been."

"Rick." Her smile is lovely and small and brushing against his cheek. He drags his knuckles down the line of her spine, savors the warmth of her so close. She sighs, the heat of her breath a pleasant burn to his jaw. "Do you mind walking me around a bit after we eat?"

"Of course. I'm starving so I'll eat fast and you just let me know when you're ready," he murmurs, moving his palm to splay at the small of her back. "Now, time for Christmas dinner."

* * *

Castle's happy to assist her in shuffling around the loft after dinner, complaining about how he ate too much and needs to walk it off anyway. The later hours of the night are approaching as they circle back to the living room, Kate taking her usual seat on the couch as his mother and daughter join them to say goodnight.

"Have to be in bed before Santa comes," Alexis teases, hooking her arms around her father's neck and pressing a quick kiss to his cheek.

Martha gives Kate's shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Thank you so much for allowing us to help you prepare for dinner, darling. You look stunning."

"Thank _you_ ," Kate smiles up at her, accepting Alexis's tentative embrace while Martha exchanges one with her son.

"I'm glad you're here," Alexis whispers, releasing Kate with a small quirk of her lips.

Kate ignores the subtle prick of emotion in her eyes and nods. "Me too."

When his mother and daughter are upstairs, Castle starts to dig under the tree, coming up with a Christmas present.

"Stop giving me things," Kate growls when he drops it in her lap.

"It's _Christmas_ ," he groans, plopping down beside her. "And again, this is inexpensive and personal, it's why I'm asking you to open it now."

She rolls her eyes. "Are you expecting this gift to earn you a makeout session too?"

" _Beckett_ ," he chokes, making her laugh. "Just open your Christmas present."

Kate snickers and lifts her hands to the wrapping paper, sighing as she begins to take it apart.

"You never like me to buy you things," he says as a preface, watching her open his gift with anxious eyes. She peels away the wrapping paper to reveal the box underneath, flipping the lid open to draw the item out from inside. "So when Alexis and I did our yearly pottery making day this year, I just..."

Kate holds the hand painted coffee cup up to the light of the tree, turning it in her hands to examine the simple purple mug, the yellow stars decorating the circumference of it.

"I -I know it's kind of dorky and please don't feel obligated to keep it, I just - well, coffee is kind of our thing and I figured you wouldn't mind a new mug."

"Coffee is our thing?" she echoes, cradling the cup in her palms, tracing her thumb over one of the stars. How did he know her favorite color is purple?

"Yeah, I bring you a cup every morning. Grande skim latte, two pumps of sugar free vanilla," he recites proudly and she lifts her gaze to him.

"You know my coffee order?"

"Of course I do," he chuckles. "I'm a writer and… and well, I want to know everything about you and bringing you a cup of coffee every morning always puts a smile on your face, even on the harder days."

"Possibility for joy," she murmurs, glancing back down to the cup, smiling softly. "Thank you. I love this."

"You do?" She sneaks another look at him just to catch that lopsided grin on his lips, the true excitement in his eyes. Yeah, even without the coffee, he's definitely her possibility for joy.

"I do," she sighs, chewing on her bottom lip. "Castle?"

"Yeah?"

"All I wanted for Christmas, all I want in general, is to remember you, but - but if I can't…"

He's quiet for a moment, but shifts closer to her on the sofa, concern radiating from his frame."If you can't?"

"Can't we just start over?" she whispers, mustering up the courage to meet his gaze. He's staring back at her with those sparkling blue eyes. "Because I don't want to give this up. I know I have walls and that I can be destructive, selfish, but I really don't want to give you up."

"Kate." He reaches forward to cup her cheek in his palm, already shaking his head in denial. "After all this, there's no way I'm giving you up."

She presses her cheek into his palm, turns her head to smear a quick kiss there.

"Like you said the other night," he mumbles, his thumb stroking along the bone of her cheek, the corner of her eye. "I could never give you up."

Kate curls in a little closer to him on the couch, lets his hand slip to the side of her throat. "What did you mean?" she asks suddenly, that brief conversation in the early hours of the morning still fresh on her mind. "When you said you couldn't solve me?"

His brow creases for a moment before the memory must strike him as well.

"Something I told you before, not too long ago," he murmurs, propping his elbow atop the back of the couch, resting his cheek against his knuckles. "What I thought when I first met you, that you were a mystery I was never going to solve."

"And now?"

"And now," he sighs, the weight of his palm warm and reassuring at her neck. "I'm still amazed by the depths of your strength, your heart, and your hotness." He throws in a wink and she rolls her eyes at him, but he isn't done. "I told you once, closer to the beginning, that you were extraordinary, but I had no idea back then."

The frustrating sensation of memories trying to form, breach the block in her brain, surge up again, pounding like a headache through her skull. Stronger than usual.

"You're not so bad yourself, Castle," she whispers, prepared to smirk up at him, but she jerks back suddenly. His hand falls away from her, sending a cold shiver down her spine, the swirl of images through her mind. It's blurry, barely intelligible, but it's him, a memory of Castle. Castle… closing a door, her heart in her throat and sinking to her stomach as he eases it shut. "A door? Why am I seeing a door?"

"A door? I… Kate, I don't know what you're talking about."

"You closed the door," she pressing, clinging to the memory as if it could leave her at any moment. "We were in this room, somewhere else and you told me - told me what you just said and then we got up, I went to my room, closed the door, and when I opened it again, yours was closing too and I was... I was crushed and relieved at the same time."

Clarity blooms through his eyes before remorse flushes his gaze and his mouth parts in what looks like shock. "You - you opened your door?"

"Yeah," she whispers, her heart dropping for different reasons entirely. That was a secret she just let slip.

She drops her gaze, her eyes falling on the mug in her lap.

A flash of memories like a movie play through her mind, memories of him, the feeling of hot coffee warming her hands and her soul sweeping through her senses, the flush of gratitude that filled her every time he placed a cup of it in her hands. Every morning like a good morning kiss. How he loved her.

"You brought me coffee every single morning," she breathes, cradling the cup closer. "You always made me feel better with coffee, even after it was so cold… why were we so cold?" A world of ice all around them, her body huddled against his, freezing to death.

"We nearly die frozen in each other's arms," she echoes his accusation in an argument he's already told her about, one that now reclaims its spot in her mind, the anger of it, the ache, flaring fleetingly through her chest, causing her scars to scathe with fiery agony. Castle swallows hard, but doesn't reply.

 _Thank you for being there._

 _Always._

The same thing she said to him after he punched the sniper, Hal Lockwood, in the face until the other man bled. The same thing he said to her.

Her eyes fall shut.

 _Thank you for having my back in there._

 _Always._

"Always," she rasps, her eyes flaring open, flashing up to him. He's watching her, beaming at her, but not saying a word. He's holding his breath through every moment, every memory coming back to her.

It's so swift, so fast and sharp and damn near painful that she has to clutch her chest, squeeze her eyes shut against the overwhelming rush of it all flooding back in like a tidal wave. Every moment from the second she walked into his book party to the day he jumped in front of a bullet to try and save her life, ended up bowed over her instead, begging her to stay and telling her he loved her.

He loves her.

"Kate," he says softly, a gentle hand coming to rest on her shoulder, climb her neck to twine through her hair. "Breathe, love, please take a breath for me. Is it your chest? Do I need to-"

"No, no," she chokes out, forcing herself to look up, to meet his worried gaze. To tell him what they've both been waiting for. "I just - I remember."


	12. Chapter 12

She remembers.

She's still cradling his mug against her abdomen like it's something precious, her eyes shining and searching his as if she's reading their story in his gaze. She mentioned the night in LA, their time in the freezer, his morning ritual of bringing her coffee every day.

So many defining moments that he was starting to think he would have to recount to her like a story she would never truly experience, understanding they happened, but forever unable to remember them. But now she's looking at him as if it's all come back.

"How much do you remember?" he asks before his heart can fly too high.

"It's all back," she whispers, as if she's just as afraid to believe it. "When we met at your last book party for Derrick Storm, I took you in for questioning."

"Yeah," he breathes, barely able to hear over the pound of his heart, hardly able to resist surging forward to gather her up in his arms.

"You used your connection to Mayor Weldon to weasel your way into my life at the Twelfth, into shadowing me," she continues, her face flushing with excitement.

"Yes, yes," he nods, feeling like a kid on Christmas morning. Well, not too far of the mark, is he?

"You kept coming back, I - I asked you why you kept coming back." She licks her lips, diverts her gaze. "You didn't answer."

"I never answered," he confirms, stroking his thumb along her knuckles.

"But you kissed me later that night," she murmurs, attention falling back to his mouth, her skin tinting pink.

"Answer enough," he muses, receiving the narrowing of her gaze. "It was never about the books, Kate. Never completely. You know that."

"I do," she concedes, the statement peppered with a mixture of both confidence and trepidation. "I knew. I had no idea what you would be to me in the beginning," she murmurs, answering her own question from nights ago - if she knew from the start like he did, if she knew how what he would be to her, if she fell for him like he so easily fell for her. "But I knew it could never be that simple."

"All I knew when I saw you was that one of the best stories of my life was about to start," he confesses, the image of her with cropped hair and a fierce scowl flashing through his mind, making him grin. "I didn't care if it was a chapter or a full series, I just wanted to know you."

Kate drags the tangle of their hands to her lips, presses a kiss to his knuckles that has his heart flipping. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to it, the simple touches and innocent caresses that were once unfathomable and are now so openly given.

"You do know me," she nods, resting their hands beneath her chin, his forearm braced between her breasts, against her scar, the thrum of her heartbeat reverberating through his bones.

She really does know him. She _remembers_ him.

"I'm so sorry," Kate whispers and he immediately feels his brow crease in automatic confusion.

"Sorry? Kate, why-"

"The last thing I said to you before all of this, before Montgomery was shot, before I was shot, was that we were over." She allows her eyes to fall shut in a moment of regret that he can barely stand to witness before they're fluttering open again. "I was so pissed off at you, for what you said, for - for being right," she confesses, biting her lip. "I didn't mean it."

"Of course you didn't," he murmurs with far more confidence than he feels, courage stolen from all of the confession she's made in the past two weeks. "You could never give me up, you never wanted to."

Quick recollection illuminates her face and she dares a smirk at him. "There were times-"

"Shut up," he mutters, stealing her other hand from its resting place around the homemade mug. "You said way too much this week to go back now."

That shakes her a little, has her lips pursing and her lashes falling like curtains over her eyes.

"Good," she says softly but with resolution. "Because I don't think I could go back."

His heart exalts, his chest fluttering with so much hope he feels as if he may combust.

"Rick, I - I need to stand up," she murmurs, the request not her true intent, he knows, but he patiently aids her in getting to her feet, ensuring she's standing steady, regardless.

"What else do you need?" he inquires, draping his hands at her waist, the soft whisper of lace beneath his palms.

Her lips part, eyes roaming his face with anticipation and trepidation all at one. "I - I need to say this first," she gets out, hooking her fingers in the sides of his shirt like always. "I know I wasn't completely myself this week, that I said… a lot more than I ever would have dared before."

"Yes," he nods, converging his fingers at the small of her back. "You really did."

"And I want you to know I stand by all of it," she says with that same conviction that has been keeping his faith alive all week. "I don't regret any of it. If - if anything I regret not telling you most of those things sooner."

Castle sighs. "It's mutual."

"Why didn't you tell me you loved me then?" she asks, not demanding, not angry with him. Just aching, desperate for answers, to understand. Just like he's always been.

"I was afraid," he huffs, scraping a hand through his hair. "I didn't know how you felt. I didn't know if you felt even close to the same or if by saying it, I'd scare you away regardless. If it'd just be something we never talked about again."

"Like the time we kissed," she whispers, the fire kindling in her eyes as she draws closer. "Or when we nearly died in the freezer, when I almost told you-" The fire fizzles, spitting with surprise, threatening to go . He pours gasoline on the embers before they can go out.

"Told me what?" he presses, closing in on her before she can retreat. "You don't get to hold back anymore, Kate. Tell me."

"I thought we were going to die," she defends, dropping her gaze to the floor. "Maybe I've always been just as afraid to tell you as you've been to tell me. But I don't want to be afraid anymore." She lifts her gaze. "Tell me the truth."

"The truth is that I love you," he gets out, even as his voice shakes, stops her in her tracks. "You are the most…" He exhales a breath, the words, adjectives, swarming his mind. "The most remarkable, maddening, frustrating person I have ever met. And I love you, Kate, whether you remember or not. I've been in love with you for a while now and I'm sorry I waited to tell you while you were bleeding out. If I have any regrets, it's that I didn't tell you sooner."

The clock in the tiny Christmas village set up in the living room chimes, marking the time of midnight. It's officially Christmas and he's already gotten all he wanted, holds it all in his arms.

"Tell me now. Tell me again," she whispers, curling her hands in his shirt.

He bows his forehead to rest against hers, breathes in the scent of pine needles in the air and cherries on her skin, and smiles. Smiling with his heart so full it may burst, rather than near tears with her blood on his hands.

"I love you. I love you, Kate."

She tilts her chin up, dusts her lips over his in a kiss that sends the flutter of his heart in his chest to a joyous uproar.

"Merry Christmas, Castle," she murmurs, her smile brushing against his. "I love you too."

* * *

 **A/N: Words will never truly express my gratitude for every single person who has ever shown me and my writing an ounce of support. I'm wishing all of you the happiest of holidays and a most beautiful new year.**

 **Thank you for the encouragement, the faith, and the every day magic; thank you for everything.**


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